


Like the Rain to the Sea

by theorchardofbones



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Genderqueer!Ignis, Tags May Change, Teenagers, Trans Character, Trans!Prompto, Transitioning, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-11-29 00:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11429424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorchardofbones/pseuds/theorchardofbones
Summary: Prompto Argentum always knew there was something different about him, something that didn't quite fit.At sixteen years old, he thinks he's just about figuring out who he is — the only problem now is telling his best friend, the crown prince of Lucis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a line in Troye Sivan's song ['HEAVEN'](https://g.co/kgs/H7Ynqg).
> 
> Not sure where I'm going with this. Probably headed straight for Angst Central, no return ticket.
> 
> Bear with me while I channel my issues into fictional characters.
> 
>  
> 
> _Personal tumblr[here](http://theorchardofbones.tumblr.com), FFXV [here](http://flowercrownsandchocobos.tumblr.com)._

There’s pale hair all over the floor, in clumps. First there were little bits, tentatively snipped; then came longer strands, chopped at with confidence.

When he looks into the mirror, it’s like there’s somebody else staring back.

_Prompto._

He says it aloud, to try it out — whispered, at first, then louder.

‘Prompto.’

He thinks it sounds just right.

* * *

They’re meeting up at the arcade, as they do every Saturday. He’s got a pocketful of change, whatever he could scrounge out from the couch cushions back home. There’s always the temptation to dip into the jar he keeps on his desk, but those savings are precious — out of bounds.

The outside of Gold Saucer is all done up in garish neons, the logo of a chocobo in front of a race flag emblazoned above in yellow and red. There are a couple of kids standing outside, smoking — older than Prompto by a few years, but not too old to spend their afternoon blowing change at the arcade.

One of them, the guy with the hair shaved at the sides and kept long on top, watches him as he goes in.

He’s nervous; self-conscious. This’ll be his first time seeing Noct since cutting his hair, and he’s worried what his friend will have to say. He thought about writing an email to explain everything first, but he wound up deleting every awkward, jumbled attempt at putting it into words.

He’ll talk to Noct about it — eventually. Just not today.

He bops his head along to the music of the games he passes by. There’s something playing in the background, some fast-paced dance tune that he recognises faintly. It takes him a little while to realise it’s coming from the Dance Dance Revolution machine at the back.

There’s a crowd gathered around it when he gets there — from the little kids to the older teens, it seems like everybody’s captivated. 

He already knows it’s Noct, before he gets there. For somebody who’s set to be the king someday, the crown prince has spent many a weekend honing this particular skill to an art, and even Prompto — for whom video games are like second nature — can’t hope to keep up.

He imagines people are watching him as he makes his way through the crowd, imagines they’re staring at his newly-cropped hair, at the baggy jeans and the flannel shirt, several sizes too big to hide the curve of his waist.

Noct isn’t alone when he gets to the machine; there’s another guy at his side, maybe a year or two older with neatly-combed hair and thick-framed glasses perched on his nose.

If Prompto didn’t know better, he’d say this guy is even better than Noct.

The screens in front of the two teenagers are a blur of lights and colours; Prompto tries to seek out their respective scores but he finds himself distracted by the mayhem of button prompts and combos indicators.

The song ends and Prompto feels the crowd rush forward to see who emerged victorious. To his surprise, it’s the stranger with the glasses. Somehow, his preppy sweater and shirt are unruffled even now, after the exertion.

‘Hey, Argentum,’ Noct says, wiping his face down. He spares a brief glance at Prompto’s hair before nodding toward his companion. ‘This is Ignis. He’s kind of like my advisor.’

Ignis extends a hand to shake Prompto’s; it’s a little warm, though surprisingly devoid of sweat. Prompto finds himself wondering if this guy is _ever_ caught looking anything less than immaculate.

‘I didn’t think DDR was part of a royal advisor’s duties,’ Prompto says. 

Ignis closes his eyes sagely, folding his arms across his chest.

‘You’d be surprised the talents one picks up in this line of work.’

‘You wanna take over from me?’ Noctis says, stepping down from the machine. ‘Gotta refuel before I can take on the champ again.’

‘Sure,’ Prompto says.

He slips under the bar and onto the dance mat, tugging at his button-up to make sure it’s in place. Ignis lets him pick out the song, and for the first time he feels pressure — if he were going up against Noct, he’d know that it wouldn’t matter if he won or lost. With this stranger, one of Noct’s royal retinue no less, he feels the urge to impress him, or at the very least not embarrass himself.

He picks something he knows he’s comfortable with: something a little faster, because he always seems to stumble on the slower-paced tracks, but nothing so difficult that he’ll fall flat on his face.

It takes him a little while to warm up; Ignis, while no doubt tired, has the benefit of already being in the zone. Prompto feels like he blunders through the first round, but Ignis thankfully says nothing negative. He doesn’t say much of anything, Prompto finds — even when he nervously laughs about how badly he’s doing, Noct’s advisor merely adjusts the position of his glasses on his nose and keeps his eyes on the screen ahead.

Noct comes back with tall cups of soda and ice; in a brief reprieve he extends one out to Prompto, guiding the straw into his mouth so he can take a sip.

By the end of the first round, Prompto’s sweating. He regrets the flannel, regrets how baggy his clothes are. Any other day he’d be here in skinny jeans and a tee, with no layers to weigh him down. He knows he could do so much better, if only…

Ignis is a gracious winner, at least; he merely nods his head when Prompto congratulates him in the end and steps down to let Noct take over.

Prompto is sweating buckets, the underarms of his flannel soaked through. He feels sick and dizzy, like the lights and sounds are too much. He sucks down half his cup of soda in one sitting and succeeds only in making himself feel worse.

There’s a hand on his elbow, and he realises Noct is at his side.

‘Somebody take over,’ the prince says, waving his hand toward the dance mat.

Prompto sees Ignis raise an eyebrow, though he doesn’t question it as a new challenger steps up.

‘Come get some air with me,’ Noct says, nudging Prompto’s arm. ‘It’s too frickin’ hot in here.’

Prompto’s glad for the excuse to get out for a while. The air in the arcade is always thick and stale, but today it seems worse, trapped under the layers of his clothes as he is. He takes a little while gulping in cool breaths once they’re outside; thankfully the guys out there are no longer smoking.

‘Everything all right?’ the one with the fancy haircut asks. 

It dawns on Prompto that this guy must be another part of the prince’s retinue — some bodyguard, probably. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt, his broad frame filling out the shoulders, and he looks like he could easily snap a dude in two if it came to it.

‘Yeah,’ Noct says. ‘Just getting some air, nothing to have a fit over.’

Irritation flashes across the bodyguard’s face.

‘Maybe I wouldn’t need to have a _fit_ if you didn’t insist on going to the arcade today.’

Noct huffs and turns away, steering Prompto far from the bodyguard’s watchful gaze.

‘That’s Gladio,’ he says. ‘I think I mentioned him before? He’ll be my shield when I’m king.’

Prompto nods. He thinks he remembers the name — something to do with flowers.

‘Yeah, you did,’ Prompto said. ‘Why’s he tailing you today? And that Ignis guy?’

Noct leans on the wall, drawing a knee up and planting his foot back against it. His hair falls into his eyes when he glowers down at the ground and he shakes his head, tossing it out of his way.

‘Some bullshit the marshal put in place,’ he says, waving his hand dismissively. ‘Too _dangerous_ for the heir apparent to wander around alone any more.’

Prompto snorts.

‘Dangerous? What, somebody gonna take offense because you beat their high score?’

‘I know, right?’ Noct says, with a tut. ‘Biggest waste of time, _ever._ ’

Prompto sips on his straw. Moves to the wall and leans against it at Noct’s side, tipping his head back with a sigh.

‘So,’ Noct says, watching him. ‘You cut your hair, huh?’

Prompto wondered when he would mention it; he feels his cheeks burn now that the attention is on him and lifts a hand to self-consciously card through the blond strands. It feels weird to him — alien. The ends are all stubby from being haphazardly cut, and he’s pretty sure it’s uneven, but he’s glad he did it, even if he wound up going shorter than he meant to.

‘Yeah,’ he murmurs. ‘Felt like a change.’

Noctis nods. Prompto expects him to say something more — maybe mock him for it — but he stares out across the street in silence. On the other side, there’s a noodle house, closed until the evening; Prompto’s stomach gives a little pang at the thought of a bowl of their house special, hot and steaming.

‘Wanna head back in?’ Prompto suggests.

Noct gives a noncommittal shrug.

‘I guess. I’m playing you next, though. Sick of losing every time.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna preface this chapter with the following warning:
> 
> **Do not bind with bandages. Do not bind with duct tape. _Do not make a DIY binder, because you will most likely hurt yourself._**
> 
> I know the feeling of desperation can be tough to deal with. I've been there; I regret being so reckless because in the end, it was uncomfortable as hell, it didn't work half as well as an actual binder would have, and I would wind up breathless because my lungs were literally being compressed.
> 
> **It's not worth it.**
> 
> Prompto _does_ use unsafe binding practices in this chapter (and will again); he's also referred to by his birth name at one point, so here's your warning for both of those things.

Prompto slots the key into the lock with the nimble fingers of any other sixteen-year-old sneaking back home after midnight.

He knows that if he’s caught, it won’t matter much — his parents never pay heed to where he goes, if they’re even home to notice his absence — but their little charade of a normal relationship has served them all well thus far.

The light is on in the dining room as he passes. He tiptoes past like he knows any other kid his age would; the voice that chimes out through the doorway, in spite of his best attempts at stealth, lacks any emotional inflection.

‘Sweetheart? Would you come in here?’

He freezes, his foot poised mid-air. He’s sure this isn’t the first time his mother has caught him sneaking home after curfew, but it’s the first time she has acknowledged it. He feels a little squirm of worry in his belly, like this might be the time he gets into trouble — like, _for realsies_ , grounded and everything.

He turns and pauses, lifting a hand and letting his breath puff out against his palm before sniffing. Doesn’t smell like the coolers he and Noct were drinking earlier in his bedroom at the Citadel, at least.

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to act when he goes in there so he swings for casual, strolling in as though it’s not almost one in the morning.

She sits at the table with paperwork scattered all across it in front of her — the dreaded bimonthly scramble to pay the bills. Normally she’d be in the study doing this, but there’s a bottle of wine and a half-empty glass beside her to one side, and a plate of pasta to the other.

He sees her leaf through a sheaf of papers, absently grabbing her wine glass and taking a sip. For a minute he wonders if he imagined her calling him in, but then she looks up and meets his eye — before ignoring his glance entirely to look at his hair.

He feels more self-conscious now about the impromptu haircut than he has all day, as he watches her stare long and hard at it. When her eyes finally move back down to his, he’s not sure what emotion is written there.

‘You left the door unlocked when you went out,’ she says. Maybe it’s his imagination, but her voice is a little clipped. ‘You need to be more careful.’

That’s what this is about? He feels his shoulders sag in relief and gives a little bob of his head.

‘Sorry, Mom.’

He waits for some form of punishment, sensing that there probably won’t be one. It figures that the first time she spoke to him all week would be about something he did wrong.

When the moments of silence tick by, he nods his head and turns to go.

‘Lina. Wait.’

He flinches at the sound of the name, even in its diminutive form. Noct has called him Argentum since the day they first officially met, and their classmates have taken to the habit, too — he knows his parents are going to be another story if, _when_ , he takes his new name for a spin.

He pauses by the door. Steels himself, then turns back.

‘Yeah?’

‘What’s going on with you?’ she says. It doesn’t sound like a plea for him to let his walls down — it’s more like an inquisition. ‘You’re out all hours, you’re always in a bad mood, then you cut off all your hair? I feel like I don’t know you any more.’

It hurts, at first. Prompto feels the accusation, the implication that it’s _his_ fault, that _he_ has been withdrawing.

But then he remembers — remembers the day he had come home from school in tears because he had gotten his period and had no money for the tampon machine in the bathroom. All he wanted was to cry to her about how hard it had been, how embarrassed he had felt. How underneath the shame and humiliation, there had part of him that had felt sick to the pit of his stomach.

There hadn’t even been a note to let him know she was working late; no leftovers in the fridge, nothing in the cupboards to scramble together for dinner.

He had spent the evening crying ugly, messy tears at his computer while he scoured the web for everything he could find about ‘dysphoria’, and when the front door had opened to announce his parents’ return, he had emerged from his room only to find they had gone straight to bed.

He can feel heat at his cheeks. He can’t duck his head and hide behind a long curtain of blonde hair any more, not now that he’s cropped it down to mere inches. He lifts his chin and tries his best not to cry, even though he can feel the lump in his throat, the sting in his eyes.

‘I’m the same person I’ve always been, Mom,’ he says. ‘You just haven’t been paying attention.’

He watches her gape at him, but he doesn’t stick around long enough for her to respond, long enough to regret his words.

Once in his bedroom, he slams the door shut behind him and locks it. When he’s sure that his mother isn’t waiting outside he slides down to the floor and hides his face in his arms, sobbing until his throat is raw.

* * *

The school year is almost over — Prompto can feel the excitement welling up almost to bursting point, even as he finishes the last of his end-of-term tests.

Beneath that, however, he can feel something else simmering quietly away: dread. Dread for the long, hot days, where he won’t be able to hide away under the layers of sweaters and button-ups.

He tries to tell himself it’ll be better when he’s not stuck in his uniform all day long. It’ll be a relief to get out of the little grey skirt, out of the bright red bow that sets him apart so glaringly from the boys in his class.

He plucks at the back of his collar while he sits in class, sweat prickling at his neck. Twenty more minutes and they’re free for the summer: two whole months with no skirts and no teachers to call him _that name_.

When the bell rings, finally, he’s among the first to scramble out of his seat and leave. He already has a change of clothes stowed away in his locker; lugs it all into the bathroom and swaps out his uniform for the loose-fitting jeans and sweatshirt that have become a staple over the past month since cutting his hair.

He can feel it starting to grow out; when he runs his fingers through it, he can feel it starting to come back with a vengeance. As much as his parents hate how short it is, he’ll have to cut it again before long — this time, he won’t make it quite so drastic.

Noct is at the school gates, still in uniform, although he has loosened his tie and the top of his shirt is unbuttoned. It still strikes Prompto that his friend really doesn’t seem like the crown prince. The other students certainly make sure never to let that fact go, but more often than not Prompto finds himself forgetting. He knows Noct is grateful for it; he gets sick of everybody walking on eggshells around him.

‘Ready to go?’ Noctis says, tipping his head toward the Citadel.

There’s a party tonight, for the students in their grade, to welcome in the summer. First, however, they’re stopping off at Noct’s.

‘Yeah,’ Prompto says. He fidgets with the strap of his backpack for a moment, debating with himself. Finally, he spits it out: ‘Can we make a stop on the way? I need to grab something from the drugstore.’

Noct makes a face, waggling his eyebrows.

‘You thinkin’ of getting lucky tonight?’ he teases.

Prompto shoves him in the arm.

‘With _you_? No way.’

They talk about their plans for the summer along the way. As always, Noctis will have the requisite council meetings and training, although if Prompto knows him at all he’ll skip out on as much of that as possible. Even since Gladiolus has begun shadowing him, Noct has become remarkably adept at slipping away unnoticed.

‘My folks keep talking about finding a job,’ Prompto says, scraping a hand through his hair. ‘So I can start _pitching in_ or whatever.’

Noct gives an impassive shrug.

‘Might not be such a bad thing,’ he replies. ‘Start saving up now so you can move out in a couple years, right?’

Prompto inclines his head. Yes, _that_. There’s also the jar in his bedroom, the bottom filled with coins of various denominations — labelled innocuously with the words ‘Rainy Day Fund’, but that’s just to keep his parents from prying should they ever care enough to ask. ‘Binder Fund’ might draw a little too much attention; more attention than he’s willing to deal with.

They’re by a drugstore, although he doesn’t notice right away. It’s Noctis who points it out, melodramatically double-taking and backing up to the entrance until Prompto turns around to see whatever the hell it is he’s doing.

Noctis throws a thumb toward the automatic doors, already open and beckoning them inside.

‘Wait outside,’ Prompto says. ‘I’ll be two minutes, tops.’

‘Get me some gum?’

Prompto flips him off, striding past him through the doorway.

He tries to act casual as he makes his way through the aisles, scanning the shelves. He finds what he’s looking for — predictably — in the first-aid section. There’s a whole stand dedicated to elastic bandages and he flips through the boxes until he finds the longest and cheapest one there. It’s five bucks — a little rich for his blood, but worth it.

He feels like the girl behind the counter knows exactly what he’s buying it for, so he ducks his head while she rings him up. As an afterthought, he throws down a pack of gum and a tube of cherry chapstick as well.

The clerk seems bored; disinterested. When he grabs the paper bag full of his purchases, she has already turned back to the magazine she had been reading.

‘Have a good day, sir,’ she mumbles.

His heart is pounding when he leaves. He can’t quite stop the grin that spreads across his face, and it doesn’t falter all the way to Noct’s place.

* * *

He’s tipsy, and for the first time in weeks he feels at ease.

They’re lazing side by side out on the grass, sharing a bottle of beer between them. Elsewhere in the park their classmates are getting up to no good, sprinting around, shouting, laughing. Prompto isn’t a part of it as is so often the case with his peers, but for once he’s… content.

Noct turns, cupping a hand around his mouth and whispering into Prompto’s ear. It’s a stage whisper, louder than it needs to be — Noct is always more drunk than he appears.

‘Look at Gladio,’ he says. ‘He looks so pissed.’

Prompto glances around until his eyes land on the prince’s bodyguard, standing a little away with a scowl darkening his features. He had suggested that they make a break for it, climbing out of Noct’s window to sneak out like they had done during many a sleepover, but for once Noctis had refused.

‘If you think he’s cramping our style now,’ the prince had said, ‘think how bad shit’ll hit the fan when he realises we’re gone.’

So they had allowed Gladiolus to tail them, grudgingly — Noct had even told him to he loosen up and grab a beer or two for himself. That hadn’t gone over so well.

‘Think he just needs to get laid?’ Prompto counters, in a whisper-not-whisper. 

Noct snorts through a mouthful of beer, nearly spitting it all over himself.

This is good; this is _right_. He has the bandage wrapped around his chest, the effects hardly visible under the material of his shirt, but he can feel it there — mostly it’s what he _can’t_ feel there that matters. He’s still buoyed by what happened at the drugstore, the cheap beer raising him to lofty heights. He feels like he can take on the world.

‘Noct?’

He moves onto his side. Noct is staring up at the sky, his eyes glossed over like he’s looking without seeing. When he turns his head to look at Prompto, the lights of the city are reflected in his eyes.

‘I…’ Prompto begins. ‘I wanted to tell you s—’

A pair of legs step in between them: long legs that seem to go on for miles, as Prompto twists to look up. It’s Gladiolus, his hands on his hips.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘You’ve had your fun. Time to go.’

‘We’ve barely been here two hours,’ Noct says.

Past the legs, Prompto can see Noctis look up at his bodyguard, unimpressed. When Gladio reaches down to grab the bottle of beer, however, Noct grudgingly hands it to him before clambering to his feet.

‘You too,’ Gladiolus says, turning to Prompto. ‘I’ll drive you home.’


	3. Chapter 3

Noct is leaning into the side of the car as it moves, staring at his phone. In the driver’s seat, Gladiolus’s eyes are trained on the road; from time to time he flicks a glance into the rearview mirror to check on them, his eyes unreadable.

Prompto’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He knows it’s from Noct — who else would it be? — but he puts off checking the message until Noct not-so-casually elbows him in the side.

With a sigh, Prompto slips his phone from his pocket.

_u ok? what did u want 2 talk abt?_

This isn’t really a conversation for text messages, especially not with Gladiolus keeping tabs on them up ahead. The park had seemed like the perfect moment, at the time — the perfect opportunity to offload everything that’s been on his mind. He had hoped, with the haze of beer surrounding them both, that Noct might have been a little more amenable to the news.

It doesn’t matter now; he’ll never find out.

_never mind. no big deal._

He shoves his phone away, ignoring the buzz of a new message as it comes through almost immediately. When Noct tries to get his attention, he just turns his face toward the window and watches the buildings go by.

* * *

It’s a little while after he gets home when he realises his ribs are starting to ache, his lungs compressed by the bandage still wrapped around them. He flops onto his bed, working open the buttons of his shirt; as an afterthought he gets up and moves to the mirror, taking a moment to admire his handiwork before he has to undo all of it. 

He thinks if he squints, it’s almost passable — the pale flesh colour of the bandage is a little darker than his own skin, but it’s pretty close.

He sighs, his shoulders slumping. He’s kidding himself.

The bandage comes away, layer by layer, with a dull throb that spreads across his ribs. There are angry red marks there, etched into his torso: a memento of choosing to ignore every warning on the web about what kids like him shouldn’t do.

When the bandage is gone, he finds the biggest, comfiest tee he owns, cocooning himself within it.

* * *

He doesn’t get another chance to see Noct until the end of the following week, at their session at the arcade.

Gladiolus is outside once more, waiting with the practiced patience of someone who is more than accustomed to being in a constant state of low-grade irritation. He’s in a tank this time, a tattoo sprawling down his arms. From what Prompto can see, it looks unfinished — mostly complete line work with a little shading. It must have hurt.

‘Noct inside?’ Prompto asks, as he sidles up.

Gladiolus shrugs.

‘Where else?’

Prompto thinks the guy looks bulkier than the last time he saw him without a sweatshirt hiding his physique; Prompto can’t help looking at the bulge of his biceps, the veins prominent on his forearms as he pats down the pockets of his pants. He pulls out a packet of cigarettes but pauses before taking one out.

‘Isn’t Noct waiting for you?’ he asks, pointedly.

‘Do you go to the gym?’ he asks. ‘Or is all that muscle just a perk of training to be the king’s shield?’

He regrets asking as soon as he spots one of Gladiolus’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

‘You hitting on me?’ Gladiolus says.

Prompto imagines the ground dissolving into cement and sucking him down feet-first into oblivion. When his little fantasy doesn’t manifest in reality, and he’s still very much there staring up at Gladiolus, he wonders if he should just back up and escape into the darkness of the arcade.

He’s plotting out the lengths he’ll have to go to in order to avoid running into Gladiolus ever again when he sees a grin split across the guy’s features.

‘I’m _kidding_ ,’ Gladiolus says. ‘Relax.’

Prompto still feels his nerves jangling, but he manages to force out an anxious little laugh.

‘It’s mostly training,’ Gladiolus says. ‘Sometimes with Noct, sometimes with the Crownsguard — but yeah, I hit the gym too. You looking to join one?’

Prompto shrugs and looks down at his shoes, scuffing the toe of one into a gap between the slabs on the sidewalk. He thinks he feels Gladiolus looking him over, appraising him, but when he glances up Gladiolus’s eyes are trained on his face.

‘Maybe,’ Prompto says. ‘Isn’t membership expensive?’

Gladiolus is silent for a moment, and Prompto sees him tap his thumb rhythmically against the box of cigarettes in his hand as though he’s thinking. He slips it back into his pocket eventually, then withdraws his phone instead.

‘This is the number of the place I go to,’ he says. ‘Call tomorrow and tell them I sent you.’

He lists it out, and Prompto rushes to take it down on his own phone — carefully blocking the pastel pink case from view all the while, of course.

‘Thanks,’ Prompto says, as he taps the last digits in and saves the number. ‘I’ll check it out.’

He tracks Noct down at the back of the arcade, as always, but when he gets there his friend is gloomily sipping on a soda and watching somebody else take their turn on the Dance Dance Revolution machine. There are two kids there that Prompto doesn’t recognise — younger, but better than they’ve ever been.

‘What’s up?’ Prompto says.

He slings his arm around Noct’s shoulders, swiping the soda from his grasp in the process. While he takes a few gulps, Noct shakes his head with a weary sigh.

‘I haven’t had a turn yet,’ Noct says. ‘These kids were up when I got here.’

Together, they watch as the newcomers rack up perfect scores, barely breaking a sweat in the process. Prompto remembers Ignis, and how he had bested both of them without dislodging so much as a single hair on his head.

‘We’re losing our touch,’ he says.

There are other games, of course, but this is supposed to be _their_ game. It’s like an unspoken rule at the arcade since they staked out their little corner of it, but Prompto guesses these kids must not have got the memo.

‘Screw it,’ Noct says. He flicks his hand dismissively in the direction of the new kids and turns, grabbing his drink from Prompto’s hand as he goes. ‘Let’s find something else to do.’

* * *

They’re sprawled across Noct’s bed, music filtering out of the speakers of the stereo. If there’s any perk to being at the Citadel, it’s that security is tight enough not to need Gladiolus’s constant supervision. There’s a closed door between them and the guards posted in the hallway outside, and that’s good enough for now. 

He’d kill for a beer right now — something to give him a little courage. Every time Noct looks at him, he worries he’s going to blurt everything out all in one go.

‘Sorry I was AWOL all week,’ Noct says. He has a comic book open on his chest where he lies, all but forgotten. ‘Got stuck going over council crap with Ignis. Good news, though — my dad’s talking about getting me an apartment for the new school year.’

Prompto sits upright, his eyes going wide. All of his previous concerns have evaporated; instead he feels the thrum of excitement in his veins. Noct’s very own apartment would be good news for both of them.

‘Serious?’ he says. ‘Awesome!’

Noct shrugs as if uninterested, but Prompto thinks there’s a little sparkle in his eyes. Noct likes to play it cool but sometimes he lets it slip — lets the excitement show. Prompto’s pleased that it always seems to be with him.

‘So you’re gonna be Mister Independent, huh?’ Prompto says, clapping Noct’s arm. He crawls up the bed and flops down beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder. ‘No royal guard to cramp your style?’

He watches Noct’s face scrunch up in displeasure.

‘I _wish_ ,’ Noct groans. ‘I’m trying to talk him out of posting somebody as a roommate to keep an eye on me.’

Prompto winces.

‘Ouch.’

He plucks the comic book from Noct’s chest and lifts it overhead to flick through it. It’s one they’ve both read dozens of times — the pages are all dog-eared, the ink smudged around the edges from their fingers — but it’s a good one: a reluctant young man, forced to follow in his ancestors’ footsteps in order to save the world.

‘Weren’t they talking about turning this into a movie?’ he says, returning to the page where Noctis left off.

‘Studio dropped it,’ Noct replies. ‘Said nobody would buy the premise these days.’

Prompto heaves a world-weary sigh and shakes his head, screwing his eyes shut as if in pain.

‘But it’s a classic,’ he says. ‘Timeless.’

‘Truth.’

The bed moves as Noct stands up, and Prompto lazily cracks open an eye to watch him saunter over to the mini-fridge across the room. Maybe when Noct has his own place, he’ll keep it stocked with beer — for now, it’s filled with the sodas and energy drinks that they prefer. He brings back a can of Prompto’s favourite caffeine and sugar infusion and sets it down on Prompto’s stomach.

‘You been okay?’ Noct says, popping the tab on a cola. ‘You were spacing out a lot in class before term ended.’

Prompto tries to laugh it off; sits up and gives a careless shrug as he opens his own drink.

‘Aren’t I always, dude? Better things to be doing.’

He follows it up with a laugh that falls flat as soon as he sees Noct’s deadpan expression. He might be able to brush it off with anybody else, but the prince has always been different — they’ve been best friends for a while now, sharing everything with one another.

‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Prompto says.

For the second time, he readies himself to pour his heart out; for the second time, he’s interrupted. This time it’s the cacophonous drums that open Noct’s ringtone where it sounds out by his hip.

The prince sighs and answers it without checking the screen. Whoever it is, Noct’s expression only grows sour the more they talk. When he hangs up he tosses the phone aside with dramatic flair.

‘Ignis,’ he explains. ‘He needs me to come sign something or… Wait, maybe he’s supposed to sign something for me. I don’t know. Wanna come with?’

Prompto shrugs.

‘Nothing better to do.’

* * *

The Scientia family resides in their own wing at the Citadel; modest though it is, Prompto can’t help but stare about in wonder as Noct leads him through the place. It’s not as ostentatious as the Citadel itself, with more of a focus on deep colours and simple lines, but Prompto is no less impressed.

‘You should see where Gladio lives,’ Noctis says, when he catches Prompto staring. ‘Even _I_ feel outta place there.’

Noct brings him to a door; when he knocks — a prince, knocking on a door in his own palace — a voice issues from within: ‘Come in, Noct.’

Beyond the door is a study, filled wall to wall with books. There’s a desk opposite the door, large and imposing, and behind it sits Ignis with paperwork scattered all around him. He nods politely at Prompto before turning his attention to Noct.

‘Well?’ Ignis says. ‘Do you have it?’

Noct’s face goes blank, and for what feels like a full minute he just stares back at Ignis as if he’s gone mad.

‘What?’

Ignis sighs; he pinches the bridge of his nose, and behind his glasses Prompto can see his eyes clench shut wearily.

‘The form, Noct,’ Ignis says, putting emphasis on each word. ‘The one I asked you to bring me to sign.’

It’s almost comical, watching realisation dawn across the prince’s face. The secondhand embarrassment Prompto feels is profound, although he doesn’t think his friend seems to care much.

‘Ohhhhh,’ Noct says. ‘ _That._ I can go grab it.’

Ignis’s eyes are still closed. He seems to bristle where he sits.

‘If you’d be so kind.’

Noct turns on his heel with a shrug, leaving Prompto standing by the desk alone. It seems to take Ignis a few moments to realise he’s still there — when he looks up, adjusting his glasses, he affixes his glance on Prompto as he might some particularly hyperactive young child.

‘Did you want to take a seat?’ 

He’s gesturing to the chair across the desk from him; it’s less intimidating than the high-backed one in which Ignis sits, resting on ornate, spindly legs. As Prompto pulls it out and lowers himself onto it, he’s afraid that one wrong move will set it snapping under him.

Ignis resumes poring over the work laid out on the table, and Prompto takes the opportunity to study the room around him. The books are mostly stuffy old tomes, although Prompto spots a number of more modern volumes on economics and civics occupying a corner of the room.

He knows Ignis sits in on the royal council, and as of a few months ago he’s a full-fledged member of the Crownsguard — Prompto guesses that under the stern, bookish exterior there’s a formidable fighter, too. He glances at Ignis where he works, looking him over. He’s in his standard sweater with the crisp collar of a shirt poking out underneath, but for the first time Prompto thinks he spies a hint of muscle under the fit of his clothes.

Ignis watches him over the top of his glasses and Prompto has the distinct, guilty feeling of doing something he shouldn’t.

Noct returns soon enough, brandishing the paperwork Ignis had requested. He slaps it down on the desk and moves around to hover over Ignis’s shoulder, uncomfortably close — Prompto watches as Ignis swats him away, impatient though not angry.

With a flourish of a pen, Ignis completes the form and offers it to Noct. Before Noct can take it, he snatches it back.

‘Are you _certain_ you can be trusted to hand this in?’ Ignis says. Although he’s sitting, and as a result is lower than Noct, he has the appearance of peering down his nose at the young prince.

Noct shrugs and makes another attempt at grabbing the sheet of paper; with a sigh, Ignis sets it on his desk, far from Noct’s reaching hands.

‘I’ll have someone do it for you,’ he says. ‘To be on the safe side.’

‘What was that all about?’ Prompto asks, on their way back to Noct’s room.

He’s still reeling that somebody in the Crownsguard would speak so bluntly to Noct — not that _he_ wastes any time on protocol or _Highness_ es. As Noct walks alongside him, he can see the prince give an uneasy shrug as though he’s trying to be casual and failing at it.

‘It was a permission slip,’ Noct says, ruefully. ‘My dad’s too busy most of the time. Iggy’s eighteen now and kind of like a guardian, so he can sign off on it for me.’

‘Permission slip?’ Prompto echoes. ‘For what?’

‘A job,’ Noctis replies. He pauses to hit the call button on the elevator and crosses his arms while he waits. ‘Since I’m sixteen and still in school, I need parental permission.’

Prompto almost keels over at the thought of his friend working a real job — not just the _civic duties_ that his advisors had him indulge in over the past few summers, in an attempt to build character. He can’t picture Noct putting down his phone long enough to do any actual work.

‘It’s that camera place we saw hiring a couple weeks back,’ Noct adds, just as the elevator arrives on their floor and the doors roll open. 

Prompto feels a sick little lurch in the pit of his stomach. He had meant to apply there when he had seen the vacancy sign, but everything else had pushed the thought from his mind. There’s no point in trying now, if Noct already has the position.

Suddenly he can’t help wondering how he’ll ever scrape up the membership fee for Gladiolus’s gym — this worry has barely subsided before he thinks of the jar of change in his bedroom and how he’ll probably never get around to filling it at this rate.

‘That’s awesome, dude,’ he says.

He’s glad when he manages to sound more pleased than he feels.


	4. Chapter 4

The house is empty when Prompto gets in, not that he was expecting any different.

Sometimes it feels like he lives alone. Every sign of life is obliterated before he returns home: every crumb swept from the counter, every dish, cup and piece of cutlery meticulously washed and neatly replaced. Little things remind him of his parents’ presence — when he leaves the house there’s mail at the foot of the door, and when he comes back much later it’s gone. In so many ways, they’re more like distant roommates than a family.

He can’t even remember a time when they all sat together at the dinner table.

Once he’s out of the tightly-bound bandages around his ribs, he slumps onto his bed and picks up his phone. The browser is still on the last page he was looking at — a forum for LGBT youths in Insomnia. 

There have been a scattering of new posts since he last checked it, and he goes to the thread for selfies first off as he always does. Looking through the progress shots of the trans kids always makes him feel simultaneously good and bad, like he’s glad they’re doing so well but can’t help feeling a little envious, too. When he sees a guy, younger than him, post a selfie of his new short haircut, proudly proclaiming that his parents finally let him style it as he pleases, Prompto feels a jolt of pride.

There’s a picture of somebody done up in heavy, elaborate makeup, with their hair perfectly coiffed; he recognises the username, TonberryKitchenKnife. They were one of the ones who replied to his post looking for advice on choosing a new name for himself — when it came down to a choice between Prompto and another name, they had said that Prompto suited him best.

_Last night’s makeup,_ the caption under the photo says, _in all its glam, genderqueer glory before it inevitably got sweated off at the club._

He tries not to gawk too hard at their sharp jawline, at the curve of their lips. They’re _cute_ — no, _gorgeous_. He’s just wondering how creepy it would be if he left a comment to that effect when his eyes land on something in the background of their picture.

It’s a set of bookshelves, full to bursting with countless volumes. When he looks in close, he can see more modern books at the edge of the frame, and there’s something about it that niggles at the back of his mind — like he’s seen it before.

He shrugs to himself; powers off the screen and tosses the phone aside, looking around the room for something else to occupy his time.

He sighs. The good thing about summer is that there’s no school; the bad is that there’s _nothing to do._

* * *

Prompto plucks at the hem of his shirt self-consciously. The fabric bandage has been left at home, squirrelled away in the bottom of his sock drawer; the best he can do for the occasion is a sports bra, bright pink but mercifully hidden away beneath his tee.

He’s dallying outside the gym, not quite ready to go in. Gladio said that he would meet him — and by all accounts he’s early — but he’s already starting to regret agreeing to come along. He feels as close to naked as he can be without stripping out of his shirt, and the thought of all those sets of eyes, staring at him, just makes it worse.

He digs his phone out of his pocket and brings up the messenger, tapping his thumb idly at the edge of the keyboard. He still has time to cancel, and he knows Gladiolus wouldn’t press him on it.

He slips his phone back into his pocket with a laboured sigh. He _could_ cancel, but that wouldn’t achieve anything.

Prompto’s still standing there when Gladiolus shows up, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. Gladio seems irritable; when he gets closer, Prompto realises he keeps fidgeting, his hand slipping into his pocket and back out again like he can’t quite help it.

‘Everything okay?’ he asks. He’s almost afraid to know the answer.

Gladiolus flicks a glance toward the door of the gym then, as if he doesn’t realise he’s doing it, looks longingly over at the convenience store across the street. He looks back to Prompto suddenly, as if only just realising he said something.

‘What? Oh.’

He shakes his head and scrubs a hand through his hair, where it’s starting to get long on top.

‘Trying to give up smoking,’ he says.

Prompto can’t say he knows what it’s like, but he’s heard enough about it to know it’s a rough thing. If Gladiolus’s body language is anything to go by, he’s having a hard time of it.

‘How’s that going for you?’ Prompto asks.

Gladiolus shoots him a look. It’s all the answer he needs.

‘Let’s just head in,’ Gladiolus says. ‘I’ll lose my mind if we keep standing around.’

* * *

Prompto has aches in muscles he didn’t even know he had, but it feels _good_. Best of all, with Gladiolus there, everybody was too busy staring at _him_ to notice the scrawny little blond kid he was working out with.

There are two text messages waiting for him when he gets out of the shower at home — no _way_ he was braving the locker room at the gym. The first is from Gladiolus, congratulating him on a job well done on his first day; the second is from Noct. He feels his stomach flop when he sees his friend’s name in the notifications.

_party 2mro nite @ laila’s. u in?_

There’s another flop, but this one is less pleasant. It’s the same tug of anxiety that almost sent him walking in the opposite direction outside the gym before Gladiolus could get there.

He leaves the text message open on his phone while he towels off and gets dressed, casting furtive glances at the screen every couple of minutes until it eventually dims. He knows Noct won’t expect an immediate answer — he’s patchy at best when it comes to replying to text messages — so he leaves his phone on his bed and heads downstairs to grab a bite to eat.

He’s fixing himself a sandwich when he realises he’s not alone in the house as a loud bang sounds out from another room. It’s such a rarity that his first instinct is one of fear, but it’s the middle of the day and practicality kicks in soon enough. At worst, one of the windows was left open and a wild animal got in.

It doesn’t even occur to him that it could be his parents as he pads, barefoot, through the house with his sandwich in his hand, taking bites idly from the edge of it. Doesn’t occur to him until he steps past the study and the door swings open, frightening the life out of him along with a pathetic squeal.

His mother seems surprised by his presence, although she’s a lot better than he is at maintaining her composure about it. Her glasses are at the edge of her nose — prescription glasses just for reading, not like the pair he’s _supposed_ to wear all the time but never does — and she has a stack of papers under her arm.

‘Oh,’ she says.

Prompto chews through the rest of the food in his mouth and uses his hand to give a halfhearted little wave. They haven’t had a proper conversation since their encounter in the dining room, and he’s not eager to start now.

‘I thought I heard a noise,’ he says. ‘Didn’t realise you were home.’

She nods and slips her glasses from her nose, popping them on top of her head. The way the arms pull her glossy brown hair back from her face, he can see that it’s all shot with grey strands underneath. 

‘They’re replacing the AC at the office,’ she explains. ‘I’ll be working from home for the rest of the week.’

He feels a pang of disappointment, and the irony of it isn’t lost on him. For years — for as long as he can remember — he’s dreamt of getting to spend some time with either of his parents. He’s under no illusions that she’ll have time for him while she’s working at home, but the thought of occupying the same space, of crossing paths with each other, fills him with dread.

When did it get like this?

‘Okay,’ he says, with a shrug. ‘You need me to keep it down upstairs?’

She looks at him for a long moment before shaking her head.

‘No, that’s all right.’

She calls out to him when he heads off toward the stairs; as he glances back over his shoulder, he realises she followed him some of the way, the paperwork still tucked under her arm but clearly forgotten.

‘Lina,’ she says. ‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’

Oh, all the times he has wished for her to utter those words — to take a moment to check in with him, for once. He knows he could blurt it all out to her and for just a moment she’d have to listen, to take it all in.

He knows this is the best chance he’ll probably get.

‘Nope,’ he says, shrugging as though his shoulders aren’t burdened with the weight of the world. ‘Nothing I can think of.’

He thinks maybe he sees disappointment in her eyes, but he’s probably imagining it. He tells himself that if she really cared, she’d stop him as he turned back toward the stairs. Even as he climbs each step he lets a little glimmer of hope take root in him that maybe she’ll call out to him before he gets to the top.

She doesn’t.

She’s still standing there when he rounds the corner and heads for his room, and it dawns on him that she’s just as unreadable to him as he must be to her.

When Prompto gets to his room he sets his food aside, realising he’s not hungry any more. He grabs his phone instead, unlocking the screen to find it still on the messenger, and hastily types a reply to Noct’s text.

_wouldn’t miss it for the world._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning: Prompto gets misgendered once in this chapter. On a nicer note, he also gets some validation from an unexpected place.

He’s in a guys’ shirt he thrifted downtown, but it’s the dressiest thing he owns that isn’t, well, _a dress_. It’s black, with a pattern of tiny black skulls imprinted on it in a glossy finish. It was moth-eaten in places when he bought it, but he managed to cover the worst of it up with a variety of sewn-on patches from some of his favourite bands.

Matching it with a pair of black skinny jeans with tears in the knees and tartan Converse, he feels like the guy who looks back at him in the mirror is finally _him_. With a little wax to spike his hair up into a point, and with the fabric bandage securely in place around him, he’s good to go.

He hesitates in his doorway; wonders if going is such a good idea, after all.

Laila is one of the popular kids — one of the ones who relentlessly bullied him over his weight in middle school, and only ramped it up once he got into shape. She spread rumours about him, horrible rumours that still follow him to this day; sometimes at school he hears them making pig noises when he passes, and he pretends he doesn’t hear.

She’s going to have a field day when she sees him, looking like he does now. She already mocked him when he came into school with his long blond hair cropped short. Does he really want to add fuel to the fire?

He sighs. If nothing else, he’s going because Noct wants to go — and whenever Noct is around, he’s sure to have a good time. At least… that’s what he _hopes._

* * *

Laila’s house is in a neighbourhood of chic townhouses far from his side of town. He feels unwelcome as soon as he steps onto the block, as though somebody in a very expensive suit is going to step from the shadows and escort him out of the nice part of town.

He wishes he could have shown up with Noct, but he’d gotten a text once he was on the subway over — _gonna b late. gladios bein a dick_ — so he’s here on his own. He knows he could kill time wandering the streets, but he can already feel himself losing his nerve. It’s now or never.

It’s not dark yet and won’t be for another few hours, but already the place is all lit up outside with lanterns strung across the face of the building. He can hear music filtering out as he approaches, with the bubbling undercurrent of teenage voices.

His stomach clenches with nerves, but it’s too late now. He’s here.

He takes the steps slowly, craning his neck up to look at the house. Five floors, and it’s just Laila, her younger brother and their parents. Why do four people need so much space? Sometimes he doesn’t understand rich people.

He’s almost expecting a butler to answer when he arrives at the door, but it’s ajar already. When he pushes it wide, the noise from inside gets that much louder.

Prompto recognises Laila’s voice above all the others, clear and commanding. He follows it — passing a staircase with a keep-out sign in girly handwriting, meticulously fastened across it — and finds himself in a kitchen that’s probably bigger than the floorplan of his whole home.

A dozen or more teenagers stand in the kitchen; one by one they notice his presence. The music keeps on pounding, but the chatter dies down and he realises, with a horrible lurch, that they’re all staring at him.

He sees Laila turn to one of her friends — Angie, he thinks, but he always gets her confused with Elena — and the two of them confer for a moment before erupting into identical cruel laughter.

He knows if Noct were here, he’d probably jump to his rescue and make some cutting remark. He’s _not_ here though, and Prompto needs to stop counting on him to be his knight in shining armour. He’s gotta learn to watch out for himself, too.

‘Laila,’ he says, shooting for casual. He gives an awkward wave to the group and takes a few steps forward. ‘This is… uh, a real nice place you got here.’

Laila’s face twists into a sneer.

‘Really?’ she says. She scrunches up her face and alters the tone of her voice, mocking him. ‘“This is, uhhhhh, a real nice place you got here.”’

Laughter comes from the group, right on cue, and he feels heat rush to the surface of his skin. _Great._ He’s blushing now, to top it all off.

‘Isn’t Noct supposed to be with her?’ Angie — or Elena — says.

 _Her._ The word feels like a slap in the face. 

He turns his glance down to his shoes to avoid the gaze of twelve or more of his peers, and swallows.

‘Not yet,’ he mumbles. ‘He’s gonna be late.’

‘Typical,’ Laila says.

He doesn’t look up to see it, but he can picture the roll of her eyes as she flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder.

One bonus to Noct not being here yet? When the others grow tired of mocking him, they ignore him, leaving him to move about as he pleases.

He grabs a cocktail sausage from the food spread on the table in the kitchen and wanders through to the dining room, where yet more teenagers wait, mingling. He recognises some of them from school and others from when he was in middle school, but many of them are strangers. It figures that Laila isn’t just popular in an academic setting.

The double doors out of the dining room have been thrown wide, opening out onto the living room. Inside he can finally pinpoint the source of the music, and for the first time since arriving he gets a glimmer of hope.

There’s a massive TV set — bigger than anything he’s ever seen in person — with bright colours flashing across the screen. In front of it there are two kids, dancing on mats.

Dance Dance Revolution. Maybe things are looking up.

He eats the cocktail sausage and sets the stick down on a table, dusting his hands off on his jeans as he approaches the TV. A couple people glance in his direction, but for the most part they ignore him.

‘I’ll play the winner,’ he says.

One of the kids playing the game shrugs; the other barely registers his presence.

It’s not long before he gets his chance; as a girl steps off one of the mats he takes his position beside her friend, cracking his knuckles.

‘Game on,’ he says.

* * *

He knows Noct has arrived when he hears the excited squealing of girls’ voices in the hallway outside. His dance partner’s friend grabbed him a drink when she swung by the kitchen, so he’s been sipping on it on and off between rounds of the game; when he steps off the mat he picks up his cup and drinks from it as he strolls idly to the doorway.

He almost can’t see Noct past the swarm of heads, but then he spots Ignis’s signature glasses and tracks down to where a flash of Noct’s dark hair is just visible in the crowd.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly the kids in their school flock to the prince, but Prompto can’t say he’s much better; he had made it his mission to befriend Noct the first time they met, and only worked up the nerve on the first day of high school.

Noct has his usual expression of indifference in place once he breaks through the crowd. He greets Prompto with a casual ‘Sup?’ and they walk through to the kitchen to where the drinks await.

‘No Gladio this time?’ Prompto says, with a little wave at Ignis.

‘Nope,’ Noct replies. ‘Can you imagine him here, hovering in the background? Awkward.’

Prompto can just about picture the future king’s shield standing at the edge of the room, furtively peering around for threats and scrutinising anybody who so much as made eye contact with Noct. As much of a buzzkill as that might have been for Laila, he can understand why it might not have been so fun for Noct, either.

‘Gladio made me swear I’d keep him out of trouble,’ Ignis says, leaning in conspiratorially. ‘I can’t say that’s entirely up to me.’

Prompto snorts.

‘Kind of a losing battle, huh?’

Ignis merely shakes his head, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling.

For Noct, Laila digs out the better liquor — the stuff from her parents’ collection. Prompto wonders how the party’s so well-stocked when nobody there is of the legal drinking age, but then Laila’s probably got a fake ID. He knows Noct has one, but they’re pricey — and nobody would ever mistake Prompto for a twenty-year-old, even _with_ ID.

‘Who are _you_?’ Laila says, making doe eyes up at Ignis. ‘You don’t go to school with us, do you?’

Prompto watches Ignis shift awkwardly, folding his arms over his chest. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen somebody looks so uncomfortable, yet Laila doesn’t let up even as Ignis gives a terse shake of his head.

‘You’re Noct’s friend?’ she presses. ‘Are you in college?’

‘C’mon,’ Prompto says. He tugs at the sleeve of Ignis’s shirt and gives him a meaningful look. ‘They’ve got DDR here. You game?’

Ignis unfolds his arms and pushes his glasses up his nose.

‘Certainly.’

* * *

Noct seems to have the same idea as Prompto: get drunk, quick. He’s been forwarding his drinks from Laila’s parent’s supply to Prompto, so they’re both on the good stuff — not that Prompto can really tell the difference. It all tastes a little like paint thinner to him.

Ignis stays by the prince’s elbow whenever he can, but he’s got a drink in his hand, too, and he seems to have loosened up somewhat. He’s even unbuttoned the top of his shirt, exposing a little of his collarbone where sweat glistens on his skin after a few rounds of Dance Dance Revolution.

It might imply that Prompto’s looking, which he’s not. Not _much._

‘So you’re going to Gladio’s gym?’ Noct says, plucking at Prompto’s upper arm through his shirt. ‘Don’t go getting buff on me.’

Prompto’s buzzed; so much so that he feels pleasant and warm, and doesn’t notice the stares of Laila’s clique any more. He wants to throw his arms around Noct and hug him and tell him he’s the best friend a guy could ever ask for.

He settles for swatting his friend’s hand away and slugging him playfully in the arm.

‘What?’ he counters. ‘You afraid I’m gonna show you up?’

‘No _way_ ,’ Noct retorts. ‘I could take you.’

Ignis takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s pretty clear that while he’s used to dealing with Noct, he still finds it tedious. Prompto supposes Noct is a little unusual, for a prince; he spends more time playing video games and reading comic books than he does preparing to rule the kingdom someday.

‘Hey, Ignis,’ Prompto says, turning to the advisor.

Whatever he had been about to say drifts off mid-thought. He’s looking at Ignis, where he stands with his glasses still clutched in his hand against the side of his drink, the other one having fallen away from his face. His hair is styled away from his forehead, up in a pompadour — it’s a little edgier than his usual look. He’s watching Prompto expectantly, his lips slightly parted, and Prompto moves from Ignis’s mouth to the insanely angular jawline that he’s somehow never noticed before.

‘Well?’ Ignis says, with a hint of impatience.

It’s pointless; Prompto’s thoughts are elsewhere. He’s piecing things together at a glacial rate: the shelves full of books in the Scientia family study, Ignis’s hair, the backdrop of the selfie on the forum the day before. He’s just imagining that he remembers seeing those same green eyes in the photo when Noct suddenly punches him in the arm.

His head snaps over to his friend, and he finds Noct glaring at him. He can imagine how it looks — him gawking at Ignis like he’s just realised he exists, and maybe there’s a _little_ of that but it’s not why he’s staring, not really. 

‘You know those little knives Tonberries carry around?’ he says, almost idly. He lifts his drink as though inspecting the contents. ‘You think they’re any good in the kitchen?’

He catches Noct’s expression out of the corner of his eye, his friend’s brow furrowing in confusion. The prince leans forward and taps Prompto’s temple, peering from one side of his head to the other.

‘You feeling okay, Argentum?’ he says. ‘Did somebody slip something in your drink?’

It’s not Noct’s reaction Prompto’s interested in — it’s Ignis’s. He sees the royal advisor pale slightly, and his jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. It’s just a flicker, and then he’s back to his usual composure.

‘It’s getting rather stuffy in here,’ Ignis says. ‘Noct — why don’t you get us all some drinks, and we’ll get some fresh air?’

Prompto almost misses the ripple of confusion that passes across his friend’s face. He looks up in time to see Noct’s eyes widen a little, flicking from him to Ignis.

‘Right,’ Noct says slowly. ‘Drinks. Gotcha.’

Ignis doesn’t wait until Noct leaves before steering Prompto — gently, by the hip, and maybe his touch is kind of nice in an oh-gods-why-am-I-even-thinking-about-this-right-now way — through the house and out the open front door.

There’s nobody else out here, thankfully; Prompto leans against the railing around the porch and Ignis stands just across from him, poised awkwardly. Carefully, as if he’s only just remembering their absence, he slips his glasses back onto his face.

‘Am I right in assuming you’ve been frequenting a certain online forum?’ Ignis asks.

Prompto considers playing it coy, but there’s probably no point now. Besides: there’s a part of him that’s a little giddy at the thought of meeting somebody from the forum in person. He’s not out to anybody in real life; the few people he interacts with on the web are the only ones he can truly be himself with.

He takes a swig of his drink for courage and moves to sit down on the top step, setting his cup aside on the ground nearby.

‘Caught me red-handed,’ he says, looking out at the street.

He hears the scuff of Ignis’s shoes as he approaches; he slowly lowers himself, sitting down at Prompto’s side, cradling his drink in his hands.

‘I believe _I’m_ the one who’s been caught out,’ Ignis replies. ‘Although I’ll admit that now that I think about it, you did look familiar the first time we met. You look different with short hair.’

Prompto feels a nervous laugh tumble from his lips. He knows the picture Ignis is talking about right away — the one he posted months earlier, when he had won a moogle plush from a claw machine at the arcade. Back then his hair had still been long and glossy, and he hadn’t been so sure about the whole… _gender thing._ He wonders if he should go back and delete it.

‘Does Noct know?’ Ignis asks. ‘He hasn’t mentioned anything.’

Prompto shakes his head. He chews at his lip, feeling guilt gnaw at his insides. He had wanted Noct to be the first person he told — well, the first _real_ person — but he still hasn’t been able to work up the courage. Maybe it’s better this way; he wants that conversation to go perfectly, and maybe he can ask Ignis for pointers.

First, though — there’s something he has to ask.

‘Do you…’ he begins, pausing to worry at his lip once more. He feels awkward saying it out loud, so it takes him a little while to get the words out. ‘Do you want me to… call you anything different? Or… maybe not say “he” so much?’

He feels like he’s making a mess of things; he lifts his head and looks up at Ignis for encouragement, finding him smiling. It’s an unexpected sight.

‘I do appreciate your asking,’ Ignis says, ‘but no. Things aren’t… entirely clear-cut for me. Sometimes I like wearing makeup, but I don’t feel it defines me.’

He’s turning now, leaning back against the rail at the edge of the stairs and looking Prompto over, the smile slipping a little.

‘ _You_ though,’ he says. ‘I assume you’ll want to speak to Noct alone, but I’m more than happy to respect your pronouns in the meantime. If that’s all right with you, of course.’

Prompto feels relief spread through him in waves, tension melting from his limbs. He breathes out a sigh and nods his head eagerly.

‘That’d be great,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’

Another smile from Ignis: another flash of his perfectly straight teeth.

‘Certainly,’ he says. ‘ _Prompto._ ’

It’s the first time anybody has said it aloud, and it sparks something in Prompto’s chest. When he had spoken it for the first time, alone in his room, it had felt good. This, though — this feels like coming home. It wells up in his chest, making his heart ache so much he could shout out with joy, but he settles for grinning happily instead.


	6. Chapter 6

Noct takes a very long time getting those drinks, although Prompto is so deep in conversation with Ignis that he doesn’t notice right away.

It turns out there’s a lot more to Ignis than meets the eye, and Prompto enjoys hearing the royal advisor talk about everything from his role at the Citadel, to his time in high school. Prompto is surprised to learn that Ignis struggled with his identity when he was younger; that this confident, put-together young man had similar issues to the ones he’s going through right now.

‘Whenever you choose to tell Noct,’ Ignis says, ‘I’m certain he’ll be behind you every step of the way.’

Prompto’s lips curl into a smile. The booze has made him pleasantly warm, and speaking to Ignis has left him feeling more comfortable about the thought of talking to Noct about everything. He even wonders if tonight might be the night — but then it dawns on him that his cup is empty, as Ignis’s has been for quite a while now, and there’s no sign of the prince.

‘Speaking of,’ he says, whipping out his phone to check the time. It must be at least a half hour since they parted from Noct. ‘Where is he, anyway?’

Ignis is on his feet in an instant. The air of ease that has cultivated between them over the past thirty minutes shifts all of a sudden, and it’s like he’s a different person — all business once more. He’s not here to socialise, after all; he’s here to mind the prince.

Prompto’s first instinct is to check the front room with the dance mats, but Noct isn’t there. Ignis seems to grow more urgent as he brushes past people, but then Prompto spots a crowd of teenagers gathered near something — or someone — in the kitchen, just visible across the dining room.

‘Ignis,’ he says, catching up to the advisor. He takes hold of his wrist and tugs, pointing.

With a stern nod, Ignis moves and Prompto follows close behind.

Noct is there, all right: leaning against the table with his phone in one hand and a drink in the other. Laila and her posse are all bunched up together, in that awkward with-him-but-not-with-him kind of way that Prompto knows too well; when he and Ignis reach the prince, Noct barely looks up, even when Prompto sidles up next to him.

‘We were waiting for you,’ Prompto says, poking Noct’s side. ‘Where’d you go?’

Noct shrugs. His eyes return to the game on his phone.

‘Here,’ he says.

Prompto has seen this side to Noct, but never directed at him before. He’s being stonewalled; it’s not a nice feeling.

‘Hey,’ he says, tugging at the hem of Noct’s shirt. ‘Why don’t you come outside with us? It’s a lot quieter out there.’

‘I’m fine.’

Prompto’s stomach squirms.

He can see Laila and her gang, can see them whispering and laughing, pretending to try to hide it. He doesn’t know what he did wrong, and he doesn’t know how to put it right.

Ignis seems intent on staying by Noct’s side, and Prompto isn’t sticking around if his friend’s in a bad mood; he helps himself to a drink from the selection of cheap liquor and heads for the lounge where the familiar strains of Dance Dance Revolution drift through the air.

* * *

His form is sloppy, and he bails out of his first round back in the game in an attempt to retire gracefully. He drains his drink in one long draught after that, and when he goes back to get a refill Noct is still there, glued to his phone. He manages to avoid having to talk to his friend as he pours himself another drink and sips it as he wanders through the party.

Prompto knows what he’s doing; he’s trying to get drunk, fast, and it’s working. He knows he could stop himself, could call it quits and head for home, but there’s a stubborn part of him that refuses to. Noct will come around — he’s sure of it.

He finds an unoccupied corner of the sofa and squeezes into it, keeping his distance from the other kids sitting on it as he watches the next round of Dance Dance Revolution.

When he drains his drink, he grabs another. And after that, another.

After a while he decides that he can pretend Noct isn’t even there; that he’s having a good time, all on his own.

He weaves when he heads back for another refill, and he bumps into a girl along the way, spilling her drink down both of them. It’s just his luck when he realises it’s Elena — and he’s sure it’s Elena this time, because she has that strand of crimson dyed in her hair. She gives a piercing squeal when the liquid soaks down the front of her dress, turning the white material orange.

‘You _idiot_ ,’ she shrieks. She glances Prompto over with a look of sheer venom and makes a shooing gesture with her hand. ‘Who invited _you_ , anyway?’

He doesn’t try to argue; just turns and blunders in the opposite direction. It isn’t until he’s barrelling through the front door that he realises tears are streaming, hot, down his cheeks. Now everybody has something else to make fun of him for.

He scrubs the tears from his cheeks and trudges over to the steps leading down from the porch, sitting a little too hard so that the movement jars his backside. He’s too drunk to care, and everything’s spinning, and he just wants Noct to be here and make everything better.

Prompto isn’t sure how long he’s out there, sobbing alone in the cool night air, periodically mopping at his face with his shirt sleeve. He’s just about ready to head for home when he hears the catch of the door open behind him.

He braces himself for one of Laila’s cronies to emerge and put him in his place, but there’s only the sound of footsteps scuffing across the ground. He has enough time to dry his face and try to regain some semblance of dignity before a figure appears at his side, slumping down on the step a little away from him, and he knows it’s Noct even before he looks up.

‘Where’s Ignis?’ he says, when the advisor is nowhere to be seen.

‘Bathroom,’ Noct replies, a little sharply.

‘Oh.’

For a while, they sit there silently, and Prompto wonders if Noct is waiting for him to say something. He supposes he’s waiting for Noct, too — waiting for him to explain the rift between them, to explain why he went from being so easy and companionable to acting like Prompto’s very existence is a pain.

He wonders if this is it — the moment that Noct realises he can do better. They’ve been best friends for almost a year now, and in that time they’ve been through so much together, yet Prompto has never quite been able to let go of the worry that he’s not good enough.

‘Noc—’

‘You and Ignis, huh?’

Their words overlap and converge, and he’s not sure if it’s all the cheap vodka and beer or if he’s imagining things, but did he hear Noct straight?

He shakes his head a little, trying to dislodge the fogginess left by the alcohol, and when he looks up at Noct this time, his friend is looking back at him. The prince’s dark hair has fallen into his face, but Prompto can just about make out his blue eyes. They’re puffy, as though he’s been crying, too.

‘What?’ Prompto says.

Noct shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

‘I get it,’ he says tersely. ‘You and Ignis. Ignis and you. It’s fine.’

Prompto’s still not sure if he’s taking this in properly; his head pounds from the alcohol and he knows he’s in for the mother of all hangovers tomorrow.

‘What are you—’ he blurts. ‘Me and _Ignis_? I barely know him!’

Noct makes a face, and even though he’s swaying a little where he sits, it’s obvious it’s meant to be serious.

‘We weren’t…’ Prompto says, trailing off. He’s not sure what’s happening any more. He knows he’s drunk, but not _that_ drunk. ‘Is this ‘cause we went off alone?’

Noct gives an exaggerated shrug and falls back against the rail beside him, resting his head on it. He has a plastic cup in his hand; he keeps turning it around and around, around and around, and Prompto watches until it makes him dizzy.

‘Noct,’ he says flatly.

He turns and takes the drink from his friend’s hands, mostly to stop him messing with it, and sets it aside. Noct looks at him again, and his eyes are still puffy, and Prompto feels like an _idiot_ because he didn’t realise sooner.

This is why Noct has been blanking him.

Ignis is the prince’s advisor, so Prompto guesses he understands — staff are off-limits, or something. Not that he was _really_ thinking of Ignis that way. He can’t help but wonder why Noct didn’t say anything sooner, or why he left them alone in the first place, but there are more pressing matters to take care of: like explaining what actually happened.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Prompto says.

He shifts, angling himself toward Noct, and he’s about to explain it all — _everything_ — when he catches Noct looking up at him pointedly.

Something about it, something about the set of Noct’s mouth, pushes the words and all thoughts of coming clean right out of Prompto’s head.

The party’s still raging behind them, the noise just audible through the closed door, but the street is quiet. A car drives past, slow and steady, and as its tail lights fade into the distance the neighbourhood falls into silence once more.

Prompto’s head throbs. He has to put out a hand on the deck of the porch to keep himself steady, and when he does, Noct’s comes to rest covering it. His friend moves a little closer, then a little more, and as if drawn by a magnet _he_ moves too, until they’re barely inches apart.

He feels like this must be a joke. Like Laila must be in on it with Noct, and she’s going to jump out at the last second. Maybe take a picture or two to commemorate the occasion and blow them up real big, to plaster all over the school.

But Laila doesn’t appear, and it’s still just him and Noct, so close he can feel Noct’s hair brush against his forehead.

He doesn’t know who moves first; thinks it might be him, but then he’s so busy deliberating over how terrible of an idea this is that maybe it’s Noct who gets there in the end.

His first thought as their lips connect is one of worry — that Noct is going to break away immediately and tell him what an inexperienced kisser he is. Then he realises that Noct doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing either, and for a split second it dawns on him that this is probably his friend’s first kiss, too.

With his mind running overboard, he thinks maybe he should try to shut it off and just _be in the moment_ but then Noct is pulling away, too _soon_ , and he tries to close the distance between them again but Noct puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

‘Highness.’

Their heads snap around at almost the shame moment; Ignis is in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. With his back to the source of light, he’s in shadow. When he takes a step forward a little more of his face is visible, but his eyes are hidden behind the sheen across his glasses.

‘Perhaps it’s time to go,’ he says coolly.

Prompto expects Noct to whine and argue, but he’s on his feet in an instant, hurriedly tugging his clothes straight. His head hangs as he goes down the steps, taking them one at a time.

Prompto just sits and watches — watches as Ignis makes his way down, too, and the two of them walk off together.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompto's parents unwittingly misgender him and use the wrong name a handful of times in this chapter.
> 
> If you're looking for a letup from the angst, this chapter ain't it.

It had taken three tries to dial the right number. On Prompto’s first attempt, he had scrolled through to Noct by force of habit, and had almost called him before managing to catch himself. The second, he had wound up calling the pizza place he and Noct order from.

The third try had been the charm, although Gladiolus hadn’t been pleased about being disturbed so late at night.

Still, he had driven out to Laila’s place, and he hadn’t chewed Prompto out for being so drunk. When Gladiolus brought him to the drive-thru to grab some food to help him sober up, Prompto didn’t think he could possibly be more grateful.

Gladiolus didn’t order anything; he sits in his seat and watches while Prompto wolfs down a hamburger, careful not to let anything drip on the interior.

‘Is it okay for you to go home?’ Gladiolus asks. ‘Your folks gonna be pissed?’

Prompto shrugs. His parents are the last thing he wants to think about, on top of everything else. In an ideal world he probably wouldn’t head home tonight — the plan had been to stay at Noct’s, but that’s out of the question now.

‘It’s fine,’ he says.

He busies himself with his food, devouring fries a few at a time and taking swigs of soda in between to wash it all down. This is better — the food, the silence. When Gladiolus had first picked Prompto up he had been a mess, sobbing drunkenly at the edge of the sidewalk. He doesn’t want to start _that_ again.

In the other seat, Gladiolus sighs and cradles his hands behind his head, leaning back against the window. 

There’s anger there, just under the surface; there has been ever since Gladiolus pulled up along the curb where Prompto waited outside Laila’s home. Prompto’s scared to ask if it’s about him, scared to incite a tirade, but the longer he waits the more he worries that Gladiolus might explode.

Surreptitiously, he watches as Gladiolus pulls out his phone, lights up the screen and sits staring at it awhile before putting it away with a slight shake of his head. When he does it again a few minutes later, he keeps the screen on and runs his thumbnail over the home button at the bottom of it.

‘I can just go home,’ Prompto says, once his food is gone. ‘I can probably walk from here.’

Gladiolus shakes his head, stern.

‘Not happening.’

Prompto slurps from his soda while Gladiolus starts the engine and takes off again. He’s glad for the ride, as much as he might feel like he’s an inconvenience — even though he grew up in Insomnia, he still manages sometimes to get lost in its winding streets, in the unfamiliar districts outside of his usual haunting grounds. The crown city is deceptively large.

He sees the splendour of the inner districts slowly begin to taper off as the buildings grow a little more crowded, and a little dingier. In spite of the grime, there’s still an austere beauty to the way the high-rises claw their way towards the sky; gradually even this fades as Gladiolus drives them through the modest little houses that make up the suburbs.

Prompto makes him pull up a few streets over, so that the car doesn’t wake up his parents. Once the car comes to a halt, Prompto moves to unbuckle his belt but Gladiolus stops him, grabbing his hand.

‘Wait,’ Gladiolus says.

He lets go and shuts off the engine, settling back into his seat. He doesn’t speak up right away; he looks like he’s battling with himself over whatever it is.

‘I don’t know what happened tonight,’ he says eventually, ‘and I know it’s none of my business, but if something’s up with Noct I need to—’ 

Prompto cuts him off with a shake of his head.

‘You’re right,’ he retorts. ‘It _is_ none of your business.’

He feels bad for snapping, but it’s a touchy subject — and who is Gladiolus to think he has any right to pry?

Prompto lets his head drop back against the seat behind him and closes his eyes. He just wants tonight to be over — not just over, but completely obliterated from memory. He had thought things were complicated enough without Noct kissing him, and even as he thinks about it he feels his cheeks grow impossibly hot.

‘I know you’re just kids,’ Gladiolus says. ‘I know you do all the regular teenager shit and make all the regular teenager mistakes. But Noct is _the prince_ , above all. You get that, right?’

Prompto opens his eyes and lowers his head so that he can glower out the windshield. There’s a children’s park across the street from where they’re parked, the swings bathed in moonlight. He and Noct have been there a couple times at night, just hanging out; it had felt like they were the only two people that mattered.

‘Yeah,’ he mutters. ‘I get it.’

He manages to unbuckle his belt this time without being stopped, and Gladiolus sits in silence while he lets himself out. Prompto presses the door shut carefully to keep from making too much noise, and as he wobbles down the street towards his neighbourhood he realises he’s not so drunk any more. Without the haze of alcohol, there’s nothing to distract him from the thumping in his head and the dull, insistent ache in his chest.

* * *

He wakes up with his mouth tasting like an ashtray.

He’s never had the displeasure of tasting one directly, of course, but he imagines it’s pretty gross — even after giving up smoking, Gladiolus’s car had still reeked of the stuff when Prompto had gotten in, and he’d had to fight a wave of alcohol-induced nausea when he first sat down.

He’d take this, and much worse, if it meant he could undo the night before.

He almost wishes his mom had grounded him. Instead he’d gotten the whole _we need to talk about what’s going on with you_ routine, with a promise that it would happen as soon as his dad was finished whatever project was keeping him wrapped up at work. Prompto isn’t even sure his father his still in town — sometimes his work takes him outside Insomnia for long stretches at a time.

He's already dreading the upcoming day. He pulls the covers over his head; maybe if he refuses to get up, he can skip the day entirely.

He dozes, for a while. He wakes to check his phone, and when he sees it’s still hours before noon he dozes again. He might have gotten his wish of sleeping all day if a knock hadn’t come at the door, soft at first — an annoying distraction at the edge of his half-conscious state. He tries to ignore it, but then it gets a little louder, and he hears his mother’s voice calling out.

‘Lina? Honey, are you awake?’

He always used to be the model child, even though his parents weren’t around to see it. Befriending Noct came as something of a bad influence, if only because he stopped trying to impress them with how well-behaved he was; stopped kidding himself that if he was just _good enough_ , maybe they would care.

‘Lina?’

He groans. Not this morning, not when he’s feeling so groggy, not _that name._

He can try to ignore it, but she’s knocking again and it’s obvious that even if she thinks he’s asleep, she doesn’t plan to leave it that way. With a dramatic sigh that he’s sure she can hear through the door, he throws the blanket off and climbs out of bed, stomping across the room.

The hallway is uncomfortable bright when he opens the door, and he spends a while squinting against it while his mother’s figure resolves itself in front of his eyes. She has a mug in her hands, she realises, which she extends to him like some sort of peace offering. Maybe if it were a can of Sylkis Boost she might get somewhere, but he knows how much she disapproves.

‘Your dad’s home today,’ she says, as she presses the mug into his hands.

He almost doesn’t feel the heat of the tea through it, caught off guard as he is by her words. It’s not just that his father’s home; it’s that they’re going to have to have that talk.

He nods, just barely, and holds the mug close to his chest so that the warmth of it leaches through his shirt.

‘I’ll let you wake up a little,’ his mother says. ‘I’ll make breakfast, if you like. Pancakes?’

There’s a hope in her eyes, and something about it makes Prompto’s heart squirm guiltily in his chest. He can’t remember the last time she was home for breakfast, let alone when she made it herself. Why does he get the feeling she took time off from work for this?

‘Okay,’ he says.

He sips at his tea when she leaves, and even though it’s not the sickly sweet tang of his favourite drink, it’s something nice and herbal, flavoured with fruit. He knows there’s barely any caffeine to speak of, though, so he resolves to grab some coffee when he’s brave enough to venture downstairs.

He takes his time getting ready. He checks his emails first — nothing, apart from the usual spam — and gives his phone a cursory glance. He lays out an outfit for the day, setting the bandage out alongside it, and when he thinks he can’t stall any longer he finally heads for the shower.

* * *

Prompto still remembers the day he had overheard his parents talking only to hear the word _fired_ without knowing what it meant. After that, his father had been home for a few weeks, and Prompto had enjoyed it at first until he realised that something was different about his dad. It had been like a light had gone out in him, and Prompto felt it in other ways too: in the drawn look on his mother’s face when she thought he wasn’t looking, and in the way she took on extra shifts at work.

He knows now that money had been tight — that eventually his father stopped staying home all the time and started leaving the house in a suit because he had got a new job. It hadn’t paid quite as much, not that Prompto had understood at the time.

They’re sitting at the table in the dining room, his parents; there are pancakes stacked high on a plate, but neither of them are eating. Prompto’s stomach rumbles, but it has more to do with the smell of fresh coffee than the food, and he’s pleased when he sees they’ve set out an empty mug, just for him.

‘Hey, Dad,’ he says, giving his father a little wave. Whatever his feelings about this little talk, he’s pleased to see his dad again.

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ his father replies, with a wan smile.

He fills the mug with coffee and dumps some sugar in, stirring it while he eyes up the food. He wants some, and he doesn’t — if only because there’s an edge of nausea alongside the hunger. Still, he moves a few pancakes onto his plate, drowning them in syrup, and takes a seat.

It’s a while after he starts eating before he realises they’re watching him with almost identical looks of concern. He glances up with his mouth full of food, stopping mid-chew.

‘What?’

The word comes out garbled, but they seem to get the gist of it.

‘Sweetheart,’ his dad says.

He’s not physically wringing his hands, but he might as well be. Maybe Prompto gets the inability to just spit things out from him, because it’s his mother who sits a little more upright and clasps her hands on the table in front of her.

‘Lina,’ she says, ‘we’re worried about you.’

Suddenly, Prompto’s stomach feels heavy. The thought of eating any more, much less swallowing the food in his mouth, makes him feel sick. He just about manages to chew and swallow before setting his fork aside and folding his arms across himself.

‘I’m fine,’ he says.

They both sigh, at almost the exact same moment. It’s kind of sad, really — that the most unified they’ve been in years is all because they’re giving him an intervention.

‘Honey,’ his mother says. ‘I know we haven’t exactly been around, but I promise we’re listening. We care about you.’

His father nods intently; Prompto watches as he turns his own coffee mug first one way, and then the other.

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Prompto says, and he feels that squirming in his chest again because he knows he’s lying.

He _wants_ to tell them; wants to spill everything he’s been going through, from the gender stuff to the kiss with Noct the night before, but they have enough to worry about as it is. What if they start stressing about trying to help him? Worse: what if they get mad at him?

‘Please,’ his mother says, looking him right in the eye. ‘You can tell us anything.’

‘Can I?’ he blurts. ‘Can I, though?’

He can’t help the sarcasm in his voice, as much as it pains him to see his mother recoil from it. He takes a big swig of coffee and sets the mug down again with a thud.

‘I don’t know what you’re going through,’ his father says, and his contribution is so unexpected that Prompto just sits and listens. ‘I don’t know what it’s like to be a teenage girl. But I remember when I was your age, and it felt like nobody in the world understood me, or even cared. We _do_ care, sweetheart. I know it might not feel like it sometimes, when we’re away so much, but we do.’

Prompto stares down at the plate in front of him. The food left uneaten there seems about the least appetising thing in the world, and the mere sight of it makes his stomach roil. He pushes the plate aside.

‘Lina,’ his mother says. ‘We’re just trying to—’ 

‘ _Stop!_ ’

When he looks up, his parents are even more startled by his outburst than he is. He can feel himself shaking, can feel his heart thudding erratically in his chest. 

‘Please,’ he says, screwing his eyes shut and willing his heart rate to slow. ‘ _Please_ stop using that name. It’s _Prompto_.’

They’re staring at him blankly even as he pushes his chair back, the legs scraping noisily off the floor. He doesn’t stop to explain, doesn’t stop to let them question it; he just turns and goes, leaving them in dumbfounded silence.


	8. Chapter 8

Prompto’s stomach growls, and he can do little more than press the flat of his hand against it and will it to stop.

No wallet, no phone. He was in such a rush to leave home that he didn’t even brush his teeth. He’s regretting that part now almost more than anything else — he can still taste coffee on his tongue, bitter but not strong enough to mask the ashtray feeling that has dogged him since this morning.

He’ll have to head home soon enough, but he’s made it a few hours just wandering the streets. He can last a couple more.

It’s not like anybody is questioning what he’s doing out here, alone, sitting on a park bench. It’s the summer — lots of kids just like him are out enjoying the sun. He just might be the only one who feels like he’s burned every bridge around him.

He drops his head, cradling it in his hands. He still can’t pinpoint where it all went wrong.

There’s the crunch of shoes on gravel, and he feels his heart pick up as the footsteps come to a halt by him. A body slumps down heavily beside him, close but not close enough to touch him.

It’s not like it’s fate — not like he didn’t pick this park because he and Noct come here sometimes. Not like he hasn’t spent the past half hour sitting here, alone, hoping that maybe his friend will wander by, having the same idea that he did.

‘You ghosting me, Argentum?’

It’s been a while since Prompto stopped crying, but he knows his eyes are still red and puffy when he lifts his head up. For his part, Noct doesn’t say anything — maybe he’s too awkward, maybe he doesn’t even notice. He barely spares Prompto a glance before turning to look out at the park, in the direction of the skate ramps at the far side where there are kids perched at the top of the tallest one, their boards lying forgotten below.

‘Left my phone at home,’ Prompto murmurs.

It’s the truth, so why does he feel guilt squirm in his belly? Is it because he wanted to see if Noct would chase after him?

Is it better, now that he has?

‘Uh huh.’

Noct doesn’t sound convinced, but then it’s hard to tell over the hoarseness of his voice. The two of them make a sorry pair, hungover and tired. Prompto isn’t even sure what time it is, but he knows it’s _early_ in the prince’s book.

Prompto sits back, stretching out against the wooden slats of the bench behind him. He slept like shit, and he’s paying the price for it now. Beside him, Noct doesn’t bother to stifle a yawn.

‘How’d you get home?’ Noct asks, when the yawn has tapered off.

‘Gladio gave me a ride.’

Prompto sees Noct move at the edge of the vision, fluffing his hair up idly with his fingers like he cares how it looks. More likely, he’s fidgeting. Which means he’s thinking about something.

Prompto’s stomach growls again, and this time it _hurts_. He gives a little groan and doubles over, clutching it.

‘Forgot your wallet too, huh?’ Noct says.

Prompto merely nods.

He feels Noct tug at his wrist, and for a moment it’s like everything is okay again. When he lifts his head to look at his friend, when Noct’s glance meets his, it all comes back — the way Noct blanked him all night, the kiss that followed. The memory of it makes Prompto’s stomach flip.

Noct lets go of him.

‘I’ve got cash,’ Noct says, settling back into his seat. He’s looking away again, over at the kids on the ramp. ‘You can borrow some.’

Prompto shakes his head. As if in protest, his stomach rumbles again and he jumps to his feet, crossing his arms across his middle and turning to face Noct.

‘It’s cool,’ he says. ‘I can grab something at home.’

‘Fair enough,’ Noct replies, with a shrug.

It’s now that the prince would normally suggest they while away some time in the arcade, or go check out the comic book store. Instead he sits, still looking off at the other kids, like he’s trying his hardest not to look Prompto in the eye.

Prompto doesn’t like the feeling that worms its way through him, settling in his stomach. It makes him think of the night before, when he had been so sure Noct was blanking him.

‘Argentum,’ Noct says.

The tone of his voice betrays nothing of his thoughts, but still the feeling is there in Prompto’s gut, and it makes him want to turn tail and run.

‘About last night,’ the prince says, after what feels like an eternity. ‘When we, uh… When you and I—’ 

‘Don’t worry,’ Prompto blurts. His voice comes out all weird and strained, so he clears his throat and tries again. ‘Nothing happened.’

There’s something in Noct’s face — relief? — that makes the horrible squirming in Prompto’s stomach worsen. When Noct finally looks up at him again, he holds Prompto’s gaze for just a beat before glancing away again.

Noct gives a nod, and suddenly he’s on his feet.

‘I gotta go,’ he says. ‘They want me at the store today to show me the ropes.’

His new job. Of course.

‘Cool,’ Prompto says. ‘Meet up later?’

Noct shrugs.

‘Sure.’

Prompto still has that feeling as he watches his friend walk away, his sneakers scuffing through the gravel underfoot. He’s dressed super casually, in jeans with frayed hems and a hooded zip-up that Prompto knows has holes at the ends of the sleeves, where Noct puts his thumbs through.

He knows, because he’s borrowed it — and even though it’s always been a little big for him, it’s comfier than anything he owns.

Prompto sighs and turns toward the other path that leads from the park, shoving his hands into his pockets. Nothing to do now but go home.

* * *

Nobody rushes to greet him as he walks in the front door; nobody assails him before he can get to the stairs. He’s relieved, at first — nothing could make this day worse more quickly than having to face his parents right now — but that feeling soon morphs to one of loneliness.

He remembers a time when he would graze his knee out at the playground, and his mom would rush to kiss it better. Remembers being so upset because he watched a movie where the character’s pet dog died, and his dad had bought him an ice cream to cheer him up.

It’s not like that any more.

He pours himself a bowl of cereal first, once he’s sure the coast is clear in the kitchen. Then he trudges through the house, munching spoonfuls of frosted flakes as he goes.

He’s halfway up the stairs when he sees something out of the corner of his eye; peering up between the slats of the banister, he sees his mother sitting there, her back to the wall beside his door. At first it looks like she’s sleeping, but then he sees her move her head, opening her eyes to look at him.

He freezes where he stands, a foot on one step and the other tentatively perched at the edge of the next.

‘I just wanna talk,’ she says.

Prompto takes the steps slowly, like he’s walking to his doom. He doesn’t much feel like eating any more, but he keeps the bowl in his hands once he reaches the top and leans against the banister behind him.

‘Where’s Dad?’

His mother sighs and cards a hand through her long, silky brown hair. Prompto had thought it was so pretty when he was a kid — had spun a strand of it around his chubby little finger once and asked when his hair was going to turn that colour, too.

It had been hard for her, telling him the truth: that he was adopted. He hadn’t understood at the time, but it feels sometimes like he’s still coping with that revelation. Like every time he walks into the house to find it empty, it’s because they don’t love him.

‘I told him to get some air,’ she says. ‘We were worried sick, honey. We didn’t know where you were.’

Prompto hangs his head and watches a flake of cereal slowly melt into the milk in the bowl.

‘Sorry,’ he mutters. ‘I had to get out.’

He sees her nod at the edge of his vision. When he casts a glance in her direction, she’s chewing her lip.

Wearily, he pushes away from the banister and moves down the hall. He stoops and sets the bowl down on the ground before lowering himself onto his backside, leaning against the wall a few feet from her.

‘Li—’ she says, catching herself suddenly. ‘ _Honey._ We just want to know what’s going on.’

Prompto lifts his shoulders and lets them drop heavily in a shrug.

This is what he wanted, isn’t it? A chance to talk it out? Yet even as he opens his mouth and draws in a sharp breath to ready himself to speak, he feels his heart pound. Blurting his new name out in a panic hadn’t exactly been how he planned to bring the topic up.

‘I’m not like the other girls,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to _be_ like them. Whenever somebody calls me “she” it makes me… It makes me…’

He realises his fists are clenched; he loosens them, and looks up at his mother for encouragement. She’s watching him in silence, her face drawn. He can’t tell if she’s angry or not.

‘It makes me feel sick,’ he continues, his voice shaky. ‘I feel like clawing my skin off when I’m wearing girls’ clothes.’

His voice breaks on the last few words; he feels his lip quiver, and when that starts he knows there’s no stopping the inevitable tide. Soon his throat is tightening and his eyes are burning, and tears are pouring hot and fast down his cheeks.

‘Mom,’ he says. ‘I’m scared. There’s something wrong with me.’

He can barely see through the tears, but he sees her blurry figure crawl across the floor to sit beside him. When she wraps her arms around him, he lets her. Lets her pull his head to her chest and stroke her hand through his arm, holding him close.

‘There is _nothing_ wrong with you,’ she says. She pulls back to look him in the eye, holding his face in her hands, and her touch is strong and warm and reassuring. ‘I promise. There’s nothing wrong with you.’


	9. Chapter 9

The neighbours’ cat is outside the window, scratching at it with her claws while she frantically mewls to be let in.

Ordinarily, he would — if not out of affection toward the feisty little tortoiseshell that has come to think of his bedroom as her second home, then in an attempt to shut her up. He doesn’t have the energy to even lift his head, though, let alone move over to the window.

He’s been through the wringer today, and then some.

Even as he lies on his bed, though, his face buried in his blanket, he feels a little better about everything. A little readier to face the day.

Well — what’s left of it. When he finally gets up enough energy to dig his phone out of his pocket, he sees that it’s already seven. It’s not dark out yet, not at this time of the year, but he feels the pressure of a wasted day settle on his shoulders.

Something catches his eye as he’s shutting off the screen on his phone: a notification in the corner. Two new messages.

_Gladiolus gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind. I thought we could meet for coffee this evening, if that suits._

The other message is from the same unknown number.

_This is Ignis, by the way._

Prompto sighs and lets his arm drop. He sent Noct a couple of texts earlier, asking when he’d like to meet up, and so far there’s been no response. It’s not like his friend to take this long to reply — not unless he’s doing it for a reason.

He heaves himself up and rolls onto his back, holding the phone above his face while he taps out a response.

_sorry, just got your texts. still up for that coffee?_

While he waits, he scrambles out of bed and heads for the wardrobe, sorting through his things until he finds a black tank and a pair of skinny jeans. He’s poking at his face in the mirror, still puffy from hours of crying, when he hears the notification tone from his phone.

_Certainly. Eight, at the café by the Citadel?_

Prompto smiles. Most people he knows would say _coffee shop_ ; something about Ignis’s choice of words tickles him, and he’s typing up a teasing reply when he realises with a jolt that eight o’clock doesn’t leave him much time.

_sure, see you then._

He lets his phone drop on the bed and hurriedly tugs off his clothes, swapping them out for his fresh outfit.

* * *

There’s a glare on the window of the coffee shop as Prompto approaches; he thinks he can see Ignis sitting inside, but it’s hard to tell.

Apprehension washes over him once he’s at the door, fingers clasped around the brass handle. What if Ignis asked to meet just to say that Noct doesn’t want to see him any more? The thought seems ludicrous even as it pops into his head, but after all the strides he’s made today, it’s still hard to shake the feeling of being unwanted. It doesn’t help that Noct _still_ hasn’t responded to any of his texts.

He smoothes down his clothes, checks his hair in his reflection in the window, takes a deep breath and opens the door.

The place is busy — always is, being on prime real estate so close to the Citadel. The few times that Prompto has come here with Noct, it’s been filled with people in the royal family’s employ, and Noct never wants to stay here long.

Ignis seems to blend in well, though: with his neatly combed hair and smart black shirt, he could be anyone from the Citadel’s considerable payroll.

Tentatively, Prompto makes his way over to the table in the corner where Ignis sits, a coffee already in hand. He’s reading something on his phone, so he doesn’t notice Prompto right away; when he does, he immediately jumps up and sets his phone aside.

There’s an awkward little moment between them, where neither quite knows whether to embrace or shake each other’s hand. As Prompto feels his cheeks burn, he settles for pulling out the chair across from Ignis and sitting down.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Prompto says meekly. ‘Been kind of a wild day.’

Ignis shakes his head.

‘Not at all. I was here a bit early, anyway.’

A harried looking young man, maybe a few years older than Ignis, steps over to take their orders. Ignis gets a refill on his black coffee and Prompto orders a latte and a slice of cheesecake to go with it. While they wait, Prompto glances around the place at the many faces of the Citadel employees, interspersed with other citizens. He even spots one of the Kingsglaive, cutting an impressive figure in her uniform.

‘I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely transparent about my motives in inviting you here, Prompto,’ Ignis says, after the server drops off their order.

With a lump in his throat, Prompto watches as Ignis takes a sip of his drink, considers it for a moment, then takes another.

_That_ doesn’t sound good.

‘Yeah?’ he says, prodding halfheartedly at his cheesecake. It looks amazing, but he doesn’t have much of an appetite any more.

Ignis sets his coffee aside and steeples his hands in front of him. He presses the tips of his pointer fingers to his brow, just above his glasses, and closes his eyes. When he looks up again — which seems to take an eternity — he seems somewhat meek.

‘I wanted to apologise,’ he says. ‘We never should have left you alone at the party last night, and I’m afraid Noct wouldn’t have gone without you if it hadn’t been for me.’

Prompto feels the full force of Ignis’s gaze settle on him and can’t help but flush under the weight of it.

‘I’m truly sorry, Prompto,’ Ignis says.

For a little while, all Prompto can do is stare. He hadn’t been expecting an apology, or even thought one necessary. In all his anguish over being abandoned last night, it had only ever occurred to him that it might be _his_ fault.

Ignis seems to misinterpret the tone of the silence; when Prompto fails to respond, he draws his hands close to himself and clasps them at the edge of the table.

‘I would understand if you—’

‘Thank you for saying that.’

Whatever Ignis had been about to say falls away from his lips as Prompto cuts across him, once he finally regains control of his mouth. It probably seems strange to be thankful for an apology, but he _is_. 

He thinks of Noct, and of how hot and cold he’s been the past couple of days. Wonders if he wants an apology from his friend, too, but decides he’d settle for things going back to normal.

He hopes things _can_ go back to normal.

‘Is Noct…’ he begins, and he pauses for a long while before he continues. He’s not sure if he wants to know the answer.

Ignis is there though, the thoughtful confidant, and as he looks up expectantly Prompto feels the words begin tumbling out.

‘Is he mad at me?’ he says. ‘Because I feel like maybe he’s mad at me.’

When Ignis sighs and looks away, it’s all the answer Prompto needs. But still — what did he do wrong? Was it the kiss? Because _Noct_ made the first move. At least, he thinks he did…

‘Truthfully,’ Ignis says, cutting across his wild speculation, ‘I can’t say. He has been rather… withdrawn, since last night. He hardly spoke to me this morning, and when he returned from work he went straight to his room.’

Prompto nibbles at the edge of his bottom lip. It’s not like it’s unusual for Noct to descend into bouts of irritability and reclusion, but normally Prompto is the exception to the rule.

He slips his hand into his pocket and removes his phone; still nothing from Noct. He puts it away again with a sigh.

‘I’m sorry if this is inappropriate,’ Ignis says, cradling his coffee mug in his hands, ‘but I thought I might make it up to you for last night. If you’ll let me.’

At first, Prompto is too preoccupied to take in Ignis’s words. He almost gives a half-hearted ‘yes’ without knowing what he’s answering; when the words sink in, he feels himself double-take.

‘You don’t…’ he begins, shaking his head hurriedly. ‘You don’t have to do that, seriously.’

Ignis lifts a hand to interrupt him.

‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘Why don’t I cook dinner for you sometime?’

Prompto is so taken aback that for a little while he just gapes at Ignis. They clicked, last night — at least, it felt like they did. But other than that, they’ve barely spoken to one another. Suddenly Ignis offering to cook dinner, and Prompto isn’t sure what to think.

Ignis seems to take his hesitance as a polite refusal; he coughs quietly into his fist and sits back in his seat, and it’s as though he’s visibly shrinking into himself, all shreds of warmth and personability gone.

‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘I understand.’

‘No!’ Prompto blurts, and it’s so loud and sudden that the woman sitting at the next table over, eating soup while she reads the newspaper, glances up in surprise.

‘No,’ he says again, softer this time, and he manages to flash a smile at Ignis. ‘That sounds great. ‘

* * *

The fabric bandage lies on the bed, crumpled.

He had shown his mother when she asked — when she had tentatively inquired into the measures he had been taking, not long after he arrived home from his coffee date with Ignis.

‘I don’t want you doing this,’ she had said. ‘We can figure something else out, but please don’t do this any more.’

He had tried to argue — to explain how hard it is, to go every day feeling so uncomfortable in his own skin. When he had shown her the jar of savings and told her what it was for, she had gone quiet for a while before changing the subject.

Prompto knows she’s right. He’s read the stories about what happens to kids like him who ignore the warnings. Still, though — it doesn’t change how he feels.

He sighs. He had hoped that when he finally came out to his parents, it would make things easier. He can tell his mom wants to support him, and as little as his dad has said he knows he’s trying, too. Yet somehow he feels worse, like they’re going to be watching his every move from now on.

There’s a knock at the door, so soft he barely hears it over the music coming through the speaker on his phone. He scrambles to shut it off and gets up, cautiously opening the door a crack.

‘Hey, honey,’ his mother says. ‘I made you some cocoa. Can I come in?’

‘Wow, Mom,’ he says, with a bemused little grin. ‘Tea _and_ cocoa, all in one day? You’re pulling out all the stops.’

She gives him a look; he realises he hasn’t seen that particular look in quite a while. It brings a genuine smile to his lips and he opens the door wide for her, ushering her in.

For the first time in maybe forever, he’s okay about her being in here.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she says, with a glance at the monitor of his computer. ‘Were you in the middle of something?’

From somewhere deep within Prompto comes the niggling urge to lie, to deflect. The truth is that he had been typing up an email to Noct, to try to talk to him about everything. He’s only as far as the usual introduction — _Hey, Noct!_ After that, the words just won’t come.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, ruffling a hand through his hair.

When his mother offers him the cocoa, he takes it and moves to perch at the edge of his bed.

‘Tryna write to Noct,’ he says, looking down at the mug in his grasp. He makes a vague gesture at himself. ‘About _this_. I thought it’d be easier over email.’

She barely pauses before moving to sit beside him, and when the bed dips with her weight he closes his eyes, silently enjoying her presence so close to him.

She doesn’t say anything for a while, and he can tell she’s thinking because she’s gone so still — and she’s never one to stop moving, to waste time, unless she’s mulling something over.

‘Why don’t I help you?’ she says, eventually. ‘You can show me what you have so far, and I’ll tell you what I think. How does that sound?’

Prompto considers it over a sip of cocoa. It’s the proper stuff — made with milk and cocoa powder, flavoured with sugar and vanilla.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘That’d be great.’

* * *

They wind up staying up later than expected, even after the email is finished. Prompto decides to give it another few days before sending it off, so once he’s happy with what they’ve got he saves it, and they spend hours talking — filling in all the gaps that have wedged their way between them over the years.

His mom only goes once they’re both yawning and struggling to keep their eyes open, and she gives him a tight hug before she leaves.

‘Goodnight, honey,’ she says, and with a mischievous little smile she adds: ‘Prompto.’


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> main tumblr | ffxv sideblog

For the first time probably ever, Prompto is at the Citadel for somebody other than Noct.

He’s been through the front gate so often that security barely bothers to check him over any more; he’s become as much of a fixture here over the past year as the crown prince himself. Prompto wonders what people would think if he told them he’s not here for Noct, but for the prince’s advisor. 

Prompto almost hadn’t made it out of his home to begin with. After sitting on his email to Noct for over a week, he had finally sent it; once it had floated off across the internet connection, he had undergone a moment of panic where he realised he couldn’t take it back, and all that was left was for Noct to read it. He wasn’t sure that he could face the thought of seeing the prince after that, even if Noct had no reason to know he was at the Citadel.

Still, he’s here now — walking the halls, eyeing the signs along the way. Ignis asked to meet at the east wing kitchens, which he has, through some favour, secured for their exclusive use this evening.

Prompto manages to push through the urge to hesitate once he’s at the door; he forces himself to knock, and when Ignis’s clipped accent floats out and beckons him in, he pushes it open.

Prompto is assailed with noise as soon as he steps inside — the hiss of a frying pan, the bubble of water in a pot. From where he stands it looks as though Ignis has at least a four course meal underway, and for the first time in the short stretch that they’ve known each other, he thinks the royal advisor looks decidedly _ruffled._

‘I’m afraid I’m running a bit behind,’ Ignis says, and he barely has time to push his glasses up his nose before they can slip and fall into the pot of sauce he’s stirring. ‘I’d hoped to have it all finished before you got here.’

‘Anything I can help you with?’ Prompto says, already rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

It’s obvious that Ignis means to politely refuse, but as soon as their eyes lock across the room he gives Prompto a desperate look as though he wants nothing more than to accept. With that nonverbal cue, Prompto scurriesto the second oven at the far side of the room and lowers the temperature on the rings boiling over at the front.

‘I haven’t even finished dinner and I’m already burning the dessert,’ Ignis says, and even though his back is to Prompto as he returns to his task, the exasperation is clear in his voice. ‘I may have bitten off more than I can chew.’

‘Just tell me what to do,’ Prompto says.

* * *

Somehow, between the two of them, they manage to wrangle the kitchen into order. Prompto neglects to mention that his cooking skills consist of little more than scraping over-boiled ramen from the bottom of a pot — he figures it would send Ignis into even more of a panic — yet with Ignis’s careful, patient instructions he doesn’t do so badly.

‘I must apologise,’ Ignis says, once they’re finally settling down to eat. ‘I’m usually better at time management.’

Prompto shrugs over a mouthful of pasta. It’s only the starter, and he’s already wondering how he’ll make it through such a feast.

‘You seemed a little stressed,’ he says, after he washes his mouthful down with a sip of sparkling cordial. ‘Everything cool?’

The change in Ignis is almost imperceptible; Prompto might not have noticed if he hadn’t chosen that particular moment to look up. Ignis tenses slightly, and his chewing slows to a halt before he pointedly swallows, takes a sip of his drink, and clasps his hands neatly in front of him.

‘I must admit,’ Ignis says, ‘I was a tad nervous. I cook for Noct sometimes, of course, but never for anyone else. I wanted to make sure it was perfect.’

Prompto knows that feeling — the deep seated need to make sure every last step goes without a hitch. He made a mixtape for Noct, once, not long after they became friends; he had thrown out his first three attempts because some of the tracks had wound up with skips on them.

He remembers the pride and nerves he had felt as he had presented his little gift to Noct, and how disappointed he had been when his friend had just replied with something noncommittal. There had been a part of him that had wanted so desperately to impress his new friend, but he knows now — and he sees it in Ignis too, in the way he won’t quite meet his eye — that it had been more than that.

Prompto’s stomach flips. Is this what he thinks it is?

‘Ignis,’ he says slowly, tilting his head. ‘When you said you wanted to cook for me… did you mean like a date?’

There’s a thump as Ignis shoots to his feet, knocking the edge of the table in the process and setting the cutlery and dishes rattling.

‘The caramel,’ he announces. ‘I forgot the caramel.’

Prompto watches, nonplussed, as Ignis rushes about the kitchen, gathering up ingredients. He seems as frantic as earlier, although it’s a more channeled energy — less dashing from one side of the kitchen to the other, and more controlled haste.

Ignis’s pasta lies unfinished; it seems a shame to waste good food, but Prompto decides to let his plate go cold, too, and heads across to where Ignis works.

‘Need me to do anything?’ Prompto saids, stepping up to Ignis’s side.

‘Yes,’ Ignis replies, briskly. He pushes a can of something over in Prompto’s direction, along with a can opener, and then pulls a set of scales from a cupboard overhead. ‘Empty that into the pot, would you?’

Opening cans is within Prompto’s skillset, at least; once his task is complete — having emptied what looks like thick, syrupy milk into the bottom of the pot — he looks to Ignis for further instructions; the advisor, however, is busy carefully weighing out measures of sugar and butter. Prompto leans his hip against the countertop while he waits, trying his best to resist the urge to fidget — to tap his foot, to drum his fingers, anything to fill the silence. He takes to watching Ignis instead, and studies the look of careful concentration on his face as he eyes the needle of the weighing scales.

‘Prompto?’

He brings his eyes back into focus; Ignis has his hand extended to him, his slender fingers poised in a beckoning gesture. It takes what feels like a full minute for Prompto to realise that Ignis wants the pot that he’s been using.

‘Oh,’ he says flatly. ‘Right.’

When he brings it over, he follows Ignis’s movements as he adds each component into the liquid in the bottom of the pot and turns on the heat. Maybe Prompto lets himself stand a little closer than he should; maybe he pushes his hair out of his eyes in such a way that his arm gently brushes against Ignis’s. Ignis doesn’t flinch away — that counts for something, right?

‘What’s the stuff from the can?’ he asks. He finds himself speaking in a hush, as if afraid to disturb a master at work. 

‘Condensed milk,’ Ignis says. ‘Then there’s syrup, sugar, and butter. You stir them all over a medium heat, and in about twenty minutes you have caramel.’

‘Just like that, huh?’ Prompto says.

Ignis looks up and meets his eye, then nods.

‘Just like that.’

Prompto wonders if he should ask again — if this is a date, or if Ignis just asked him here as a friend. He figures either answer wouldn’t be so bad, even with the Noct situation taken into account; what’s the harm in finding out for sure?

He’s just opening his mouth to form the words when Ignis turns suddenly and marches across the room. He grabs their neglected plates, loading them onto one arm, and picks up their drinks in his free hand, carrying them expertly over.

‘No point in letting this go to waste,’ he says, and that brisk tone is back in his voice — but Prompto thinks maybe this time it sounds a little forced.

They eat in silence, taking turns stirring the caramel. It’s a slow, boring task, but Prompto finds he doesn’t mind it so much when it’s with Ignis. Where he had been all afluster earlier, he seems to have reached a state of calm now, and it has a contagious effect on Prompto.

While Prompto watches Ignis diligently stir the mixture, the spoon making a gentle scraping noise against the metal base of the pot, Prompto feels prickles move up the back of his neck. It feels like he’s a kid again, watching his second grade teacher mark homework while the other children were outside playing, and he sat alone eating his lunch listening to her humming.

‘How do you know when it’s ready?’ he asks. He has to clear his throat a little; he feels sluggish, like he’s coming out of a dream.

‘It turns a light amber,’ Ignis says. ‘You have to be careful not to leave it too long, else it should be burn.’

Ignis’s glasses are fogged up from the heat; he slips them off and wipes them carefully clean with the corner of his shirt, and Prompto is struck yet again by just how green his eyes are.

‘It’s ready,’ Ignis says softly, meeting Prompto’s eye again.

Prompto watches his adam’s apple rise and fall. Ignis turns a beat later and shuts off the heat on the ring.

‘Care to do the honours?’ Ignis says, gesturing to the pot.

The shortbread is ready and waiting — he guides Prompto to pour the caramel over the top of it, and the liquid quickly pools to fill the gaps, like molten lava.

‘It smells amazing,’ Prompto says.

It will strike him later that perhaps it isn’t the wisest move, but for the time being he barely gives it a second thought as he dips his finger into a dollop of leftover caramel at the edge of the pot to taste it. His hand is almost at his mouth when he sees Ignis’s eyes go wide and he knows something is wrong, and an instant later he feels it — the deep, throbbing pain of heat, starting at the tip of his finger and shooting through to the rest of his hand.

‘The tap,’ Ignis blurts. ‘Cold water. Now.’

Ignis leads him to the sink and turns the faucet on full blast, gently gripping Prompto’s wrist and guiding it under the water. Ignis keeps him there until the caramel has washed away, taking the worst of the heat with it, although even as Ignis shuts off the water Prompto can still feel pain throb through his finger in sporadic pulses.

‘That was _hot_ ,’ Prompto says.

He expects Ignis to look at him with irritating, or at the very least pity, but he’s professional as he carefully looks Prompto’s finger over, turning his hand this way and that.

‘I could have told you that,’ Ignis says mildly, and at last he looks up at Prompto, his eyes crinkling ever so slightly in a kind smile.

Ignis is tending to him with supplies from the first-aid kit when one side of the double doors out of the kitchen swings open. Ignis doesn’t look up from his task of applying cream to the burn, but Prompto does — and he feels it in his gut before he ever recognises the dark hair, the blue eyes.

‘Noct.’

Why does it feel as though they’ve been caught doing something? Is it the same reason that Ignis suddenly lets Prompto’s hand drop and steps back, putting distance between them?

Why does Prompto feel so sick, so hollow?

‘Am I interrupting?’ the prince says.

Everything about him spells boredom — his tone, the set of his shoulders. He folds his arms across his chest, and Prompto sees him eye up the spread of food on the table before returning his attention to them.

Prompto wonders if he read the email; the feeling of regret, of dread, gnaws at his insides all the more acutely.

‘We were just—’ Prompto blurts, but before he can finish Noct cuts across him with a shake of his head.

‘S’cool. You don’t need to explain. You guys are busy.’

The prince doesn’t leave much room for argument; Ignis opens his mouth to protest, but Noct has already turned on his heel, heading for the exit.

He doesn’t say anything as he goes, doesn’t so much as wave goodbye, and as the door swings shut behind him, Prompto can’t help but feel like he’s made things so much worse.

* * *

To Ignis’s credit, he does his best to act as though there isn’t an elephant in the room while they finish their meal. When he had caught Prompto glancing toward the door long after Noct’s departure, he had suggested that Prompto leave if he had felt like it — but after being met with a polite but firm refusal, he hasn’t brought it up again.

It’s hard not to think of Noct, though. Of the guilt that had made itself at home in the pit of Prompto’s stomach, as if he were betraying his friend somehow — the guilt that had only seemed to worsen every time he caught himself looking at Ignis or laughing a little too heartily at his jokes.

They’re eating dessert, including their joint effort at caramel, when Prompto catches Ignis studying him. Heat rushes to his cheeks reflexively and he looks up, mouth full.

‘Whaddisit?’ he says, through a mouthful of shortbread.

Ignis blinks as if only realising that he had been staring; he clears his throat and sits up a little straighter.

‘You mentioned the other day that you came out to your parents,’ he says. ‘I wondered how things have been between you.’

Prompto throws his hands up and munches his way through the shortbread until he can swallow it, finally.

‘It’s, y’know,’ he says, with a shrug. ‘It’s been good, mostly? My mom’s actually been pretty great but I think my dad’s still figuring it out.’

‘He’ll come around,’ Ignis says.

‘I guess,’ Prompto replies. He gives a little sigh and droops, letting his chin rest propped on his hand. ‘My mom, uh… She helped me write an email to Noct. Telling him everything.’

He sees Ignis’s eyebrow raise fractionally; sees him clasp his hands in front of him the way he always seems to whenever something important has come up. Prompto wonders if he knows he has these little tells — if he knows that Prompto has noticed them.

‘Have you spoken since?’ Ignis says.

Prompto shakes his head. 

‘I just sent it today.’

Ignis shakes his head ruefully and pushes his dessert aside, laying the fork facing downward on the plate.

‘Not that I don’t appreciate your company,’ he says, ‘but don’t you think you should speak with him?’

It takes everything Prompto has not to shove his plate out of the way and drop his face onto the table in an effort to hide it. He hasn’t known Ignis long enough for him to be aware of what a master he is at avoiding his problems. He could explain that if he doesn’t talk to Noct, he won’t be disappointed by how the conversation plays out — but something tells him Ignis won’t see that as an acceptable excuse.

‘Do I _have to_?’ he says with a hint of a whine.

Ignis looks at him sternly, just over the frame of his glasses. He’s only eighteen but already he has the makings of a member of the royal council; he handles so much responsibility on Noct’s behalf that it’s a wonder he hasn’t buckled under the pressure.

‘You don’t _have to_ ,’ he says, ‘but I think Noct would appreciate it if you did. Why else would he have come here?’

There’s a pointed look on Ignis’s face — not quite smug. Prompto wants to argue, but even as he opens his mouth to do so he finds he can’t. Ignis has a point, and delaying the inevitable will only make matters worse.

Slowly, Prompto pushes himself up from his seat.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Yeah, okay. You’re right. I’ll go talk to him.’

Ignis nods and, with a slender finger, pushes his glasses up his nose.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘You go ahead. I’ll clear up here.’

Ignis doesn’t wait; Prompto watches him potter about, gathering up the plates and utensils as he goes. For somebody whose job isn’t officially to tend to culinary pursuits, he seems so at home at it.

Prompto rests a hand flat on the table by his place setting. He brushes the tip of his finger over a groove in the surface while he thinks — as much as he’s glad for Ignis’s support, he still feels a pang of guilt over leaving prematurely. He gathers up a few more items from the table and brings them over to the counter, setting it all aside.

‘Ignis,’ he says, touching the other’s arm. ‘Thank you. I had a great time.’

Ignis seems surprised at the gesture; he blinks at Prompto for a moment before nodding.

‘Certainly. It was my pleasure.’

With a grin and a nod, Prompto turns and trots across the room to the double doors Noct used to leave earlier.

He’s halfway down the hall when it occurs to him that he never did get an answer about whether or not it had been a date, but that’s something to worry about another day. For now, he has something more urgent to attend to.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> main tumblr | ffxv sideblog

There’s a part of Prompto, deep down, that hopes there’ll be no answer when he turns up at Noct’s door. However buoyed he might have been after his maybe-date with Ignis, he had spent the walk through the Citadel running through the different outcomes of talking to Noct and most of them had been bad.

He hesitates for a long while outside the prince’s door, ignoring the stares of the guards stationed at either end of the long hallway to Noct’s chambers. It’s not like this is the first time he’s shown up here unannounced — but he knows that their duty is to wait and watch, and these same guards who have seen him blundering tipsily through Noct’s door, or strolling by while locked in companionable chatter with the prince, must not have failed to notice that he hasn’t been around in a while.

Prompto tries to put the guards, and their blank, all-seeing eyes, from his mind. He raises his hand, and he knocks.

There’s no answer right away, and the more time stretches out without a response, the more time there is for nausea to settle in, bitter at the back of his throat. He knocks again, louder this time, and when it goes unanswered once more he feels his shoulders slump.

He’s turning to go when the door clicks open.

‘Argentum?’

The prince is in the same shirt he wore down to the kitchen, but he’s in baggy sweats. His hair is all mussed up as though he’s been sleeping on it; that might explain why he’s blinking uncomfortably at the lights out in the hall while he half-hides behind the doorframe.

‘I can come back some other time,’ Prompto says awkwardly. ‘I didn’t realise you were asleep.’

Noct shakes his head hurriedly and the movement sets his hair tumbling into his eyes. He lifts his hand and flicks it aside.

‘No, it’s fine,’ he says, his voice a little hoarse. ‘I was napping.’

They stand apart from each other for the better part of a minute, Prompto staring down at the ornate tiles beneath his feet. He’s walked over them countless times, yet this is probably the first time he’s ever noticed the patterns on them — a medley of gold, cream and black, with floral embellishments that morph into skull motifs at the corners. 

He wonders if they might just stay like this in silence until one or the other of them walks away, but then Noct takes a step back and pushes the door open wide.

‘You coming in?’ Noct says.

The prince’s curtains are drawn, even though it’s still bright out. The only source of light in the room comes from the dim blue-white glow of his laptop’s screen where it sits half-open on his bed, amid the tangled sheets.

Prompto wrinkles his nose. His bedroom at home doesn’t exactly smell like roses, but Noct’s is ripe, as though he hasn’t had the window open in days.

‘So.’

Noct sprawls back on the bed, reaching over his head to turn the lamp on. The light casts the clutter of the room in stark shadow — dirty laundry, dishes and cups with old food encrusted on them, crumpled up balls of paper. 

‘I didn’t figure you for Iggy’s type,’ the prince says. He inspects his nails, and his attempt at playing casual is so obvious it’s almost insulting. ‘That’s cool, though.’

Again Noct’s making assumptions, like the night of the party; this time, Prompto isn’t so sure he can deny it. He’s in the process of shrugging when Noct’s words properly hit him and he makes a disgruntled noise of offence. 

‘ _Hey,_ ’ he protests. ‘What do you mean by _that_?’

The prince shrugs, still cool and indifferent. He moves and grabs his laptop, rolling onto his stomach while he uses it.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Just surprised, is all.’

Music filters from the speakers of the laptop, tinny and low. Prompto wraps his arms around himself and perches at the edge of Noct’s mattress, about as far from him as he can go.

This isn’t right — nothing’s right about it. It feels awkward between them: stilted. Anxiety festers within his stomach.

Noct folds his arms underneath him, propping his chin on his hands. From here it looks like he could be asleep, still as he is. How many times has he drifted off while they’ve played games together, while they’ve stayed up until three playing King’s Knight? What if it never gets back to that?

‘Got your email,’ Noct says.

That rotting feeling only gets worse, and Prompto tries in vain to swallow the lump in his throat. 

‘Yeah?’

Noct’s quiet for a while; he turns his head and looks up, peering through the mop of his dark hair. He should really see about getting it cut.

‘Yeah,’ the prince echoes. ‘How long have you known?’

Prompto shrugs. Sometimes he’s not even sure he _knows_ anything. Some days he feels it so keenly that it’s like it’s written into his bones; others, he worries that he’s making it all up, trying to find something — _anything_ — to distract from the feeling of not fitting in.

That had been Noct, once: his distraction. Their friendship had staved off the feelings of wrongness, the itch just under the surface of his skin. After a while, though, it hadn’t been enough.

‘A long time, I guess,’ Prompto says quietly. ‘Before we were friends. I figured maybe it’d go away but…’

‘But it didn’t,’ Noct supplies.

The silence between them is heavy, and he waits for the inevitable. He tries to focus on the sound of the music but it’s just noise in the background, prickling at him like static. He hears the bed creak as Noct moves; watches as the prince gets up, sets the laptop aside, and moves to sit down beside him with their thighs touching.

Noct’s moves his hand, and for a minute Prompto thinks he’s going to touch his leg; instead he reaches out and takes Prompto’s hand, and his pale fingers lace through Prompto’s.

‘You know I love you, right?’ Noct says. ‘No matter what?’

Prompto looks down at their hands together. A week earlier, when they had kissed, there had been a brief, drunken moment when it had felt right — this, them together, everything. In the aftermath he had been so sure that Noct hated him for what had happened, and it had felt like a piece of him had been cut right out of his chest.

He knows — knows that Noct means it. Knows that whatever else might happen, whatever might try to come between them, they’ll always have each other.

‘Yeah,’ he murmurs. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Noct’s fingers squeeze his, and he holds on for a long while before letting go. The prince flops back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and Prompto follows suit a moment later.

‘So,’ Noct says. ‘Prompto, huh?’

Prompto feels heat prickle at his cheeks. It’s the first time he’s heard Noct say it, and he thinks he likes the sound of it from his friend’s lips.

‘It’s not dumb, is it?’ Prompto says meekly.

Noct shakes his head and turns to look at him.

‘Nope,’ he replies. ‘It suits you: Prompto Argentum. Kinda has a nice ring to it.’

This time, when Prompto feels the blush darken his cheeks, it’s pleasure rather than embarrassment that puts it there.

* * *

_hey mom. staying at noct’s tonight, ok?_

_Everything’s okay between you two?_

_yeah. everything’s great :)_

* * *

Prompto yawns and hunts around on the bed for his phone, half-heartedly tugging at the tangle of blankets. When he can’t find it in his immediate proximity, he decides it must be a lost cause and prods Noct in the thigh where he’s half watching the movie they put on and half browsing social media on his phone.

‘What’s the time?’ Prompto says.

‘Twelve-thirty,’ Noct replies. ‘You tired?’

Prompto stifles another yawn, but he shakes his head and sinks back in beside his friend, leaning against his shoulder.

‘I’m okay. Let’s finish the movie.’

He can feel his eyes growing heavier and heavier as the movie wears on; it’s the director's cut of _Blade Runner_ , so even though it’s a favourite of theirs it's long and dreamlike enough to lull him. He knows he should call it a night, but he doesn’t want to move — doesn’t want to have to go to sleep, even as exhausted as he is.

He blinks, and when he opens his eyes the credits are rolling. Noct is asleep too, his head tipped back against the headboard behind him, his neck exposed; for a little while Prompto just rubs at his eyes and watches the prince sleep, his face untroubled.

Gently, Prompto shakes Noct’s arm and watches his eyes flutter open.

‘Movie’s over,’ Prompto says.

They put the bare minimum effort into getting ready for sleep — Noct grabs t-shirts from the drawer beside the bed and passes one to Prompto, and they change without leaving the comfort of the blanket. Once the laptop has powered down and the lamp is off, they sink in under the covers.

Prompto wonders if he should stick to the edge of the bed, keeping a safe distance between them; he’s saved from the trouble of deciding as he feels Noct edge up beside him, sticking close even though it’s a queen-size bed.

‘Hey, Prompto,’ Noct murmurs. He’s by Prompto’s ear, fingers clutching gently at his shirt. ‘Thanks. For telling me everything.’

Prompto tries not to focus too hard on the feel of Noct’s breath skirting against his neck and gives a shrug.

‘Thanks for being there.’

Any other night they might play some King’s Knight until they pass out, but tonight they lie together in the darkness, Noct’s arm slung almost carelessly around Prompto’s waist. On this floor of the Citadel there’s no noise from outside: no traffic, no late-night revelry — just the stillness of the room around them.

Prompto feels a smile form on his lips. He rolls onto his back, careful not to dislodge Noct’s arm from around him. With a sigh of contentment, he closes his eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> main tumblr | ffxv sideblog

Prompto walks side-by-side with the crown prince of Lucis. It’s early — too early for both of them, after a summer of late nights and sleeping in. To add insult to injury it’s the first day of school, and there are about a million other places they’d rather be.

There’s a little part of Prompto that’s excited, though — excited to show up in the school’s regulation boys’ uniform, his hair carefully styled with Noct’s help. He knows there’ll be cruel comments like there always are, but he feels bolder than he did before the summer. Feels like he can face it all.

‘You sure we can’t cut class?’ Noct says with a groan.

Prompto snorts.

‘Dude. It’s the first day.’

They drag their feet a little along the way, taking the scenic route as if it’ll delay the inevitable — they still get there on time, though.

If there are whispers as they pass their schoolmates, Prompto doesn’t notice; he holds his head high, and when Noct bumps him reassuringly with his hip, he does the same. He knows people will assume they’re an item as they always do, and the only people who haven’t heard the news about him are probably the ones who have been living under a rock, but for once the gossip doesn’t faze him. Let them talk — at least his summer was eventful, for once.

He gets a text message just as he’s sitting down in his first class; when he carefully checks his phone under the desk so the teacher can’t see, it’s Ignis wishing him luck. He can’t help but smile as he reads his friend’s brisk but thoughtful words, and when there’s that little pang of something at the sight of Ignis’s name on the screen, he turns off his phone and puts it out of his head.

The students are rowdy, as they always are during the first class on the first day of term; the teacher has to all but boom to make herself heard across the din. Once the room settles somewhat into order, she directs them all to open their textbooks and moves off to start writing on the whiteboard behind her.

Prompto opens the cover of his book, where he sees his name scrawled on the inside of it. His _old_ name; as hard is it is for other people to remember, even he still slips up sometimes.

He digs through his pencil case until he finds a gel pen in sparkly purple ink and draws a line through where it says _Linaria Argentum_. Beneath it, in clear letters, he prints his new name:

_Prompto Argentum._

* * *

There’s a package waiting when he gets in on Friday at the end of his first week of school. It’s wrapped in chocobo print paper and there’s a note with it. He has to think long and hard about whether there’s a special occasion he’s forgetting about, but he knows there isn’t — yet the chocobo paper must be for him.

_Prompto,_

_We debated about giving you this on your birthday, but since it’s still a while away we thought we’d treat you early. We’re sorry we’re not home to give it to you in person._

_We’ll be home tomorrow — we’re free all weekend. You can tell us all about your first week back at school._

_Have fun tonight. Don’t stay out too late! We want to do something together tomorrow, as a family._

_Love,_   
_Mom & Dad_

He can’t quite seem to put the note down; he holds it tightly in his hand, rereading it, and when he finally manages to lay it aside he does so with infinite care.

The parcel is next — carefully finding the seams, he opens the wrapping without tearing it and something black falls out; when he picks it up and holds it in front of him, it’s a vest made of stretchy material. He studies it for a long while before it strikes him what it is.

A binder.

He hugs it to his chest, as tightly as if it were his own mother and father instead of their gift to him. Taking off, he runs up the stairs, still clutching it to his chest, and bursts into his bedroom to try it on.

It’s a perfect fit. Under the tightest shirt he owns, his chest is flatter than he could ever get it with the bandage that his mom asked him to throw out. The guy in the mirror — the blond hair, the freckles, the shy smile — that’s _him_. That’s really him.

He can feel tears stinging at his eyes but he doesn’t dare to let them fall. He has a party to go to tonight; he can’t afford to let his face get all puffy from crying.

* * *

It’s been a tradition ever since middle school for Laila or one of her clique to host the big first party of term, at the end of the first week. Prompto knows that tonight, that’s where everyone will be headed.

There’s another party, though — something a little more low-key, for the outcasts — and the host is none other than Noctis.

Technically it was Ignis who catered it and did a lot of the planning, and it had all been Prompto’s idea, but it’s Noct’s apartment — the prince insists that counts for something. Prompto has to admit, as he watches from the doorway of Noct’s bedroom as their classmates and acquaintances mingle about the open floorplan, that it’s a much better venue than Laila’s house ever was.

‘You done yet?’ Prompto asks with a whine. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Just a sec,’ Noct says.

Prompto turns and leans against the doorframe, watching the prince at work. He’s got Ignis in the chair by his dresser and sits in front of him, one hand carefully tilting his advisor’s face upwards while the other carefully applies a thick rim of liner around Ignis’s eyes.

Iggy’s hair is already done, artfully swept up and back into a pompadour and affixed with a healthy dose of hairspray. His shirt is artfully unbuttoned part of the way, showing off his collarbone.

Prompto can’t help but watch Ignis’s long, slender fingers fidget in his lap while he waits for Noct to finish; Prompto clears his throat and looks away, studying the posters on the wall behind Noct’s bed as if just seeing them for the first time.

‘Just about done,’ Noct says, and he makes one last flick of the eyeliner pencil before stepping back with a flourish. ‘What do you think?’

The advisor glances up expectantly, his hands twisting in his lap as though anxious about Prompto’s response.

Prompto pushes off from the doorway and heads over to inspect Noct’s handiwork, taking in the full effect of Ignis’s hair, makeup and outfit. Ignis opted for black skinny jeans and a dark purple shirt, and everything fits him just perfectly as it clings in all the right places and skims elegantly in the others.

‘One more thing,’ Prompto says.

He grabs his makeup bag from the top of the dresser, ignoring the red eyeshadow that he has already blotted around his own eyes. With a pot of peach flavoured lip balm in hand, he moves around in front of Ignis and flashes a shy little smile.

‘You mind?’ he says, displaying the pot for Ignis to see. ‘I can do it, if you want.’

Ignis takes a glance at Prompto’s hands, and nods.

‘Go ahead.’

Dutifully, Prompto twists off the lid of the balm and sweeps a little onto his fingertip before carefully dabbing it on Ignis’s lips.

Together they had picked out a smoky eye for Ignis, and with lightly glossed lips to complete the look, Prompto thinks it’s possible he’s never seen another human being look quite so comfortable in their own skin. Ignis has eschewed his glasses for the night, and the green of his eyes stands out amid the dusky colours surrounding them.

Noct studies Ignis quietly for a little while; when Prompto looks up to try to get a read on the prince’s reaction, he’s watching _him_.

‘Nice,’ Noct says, looking away. ‘I think we’re good to go.’

It’s only nine, but already the apartment is full of revellers. When the trio steps out of Noct’s room, a number of heads turns, and between the three of them Prompto isn’t sure who attracts the most stares. He sees Gladiolus’s face amongst those watching intently and he steps up on his tiptoes, waving across the room.

The future king’s shield is business as always, although he seems somewhat more lax being on Noct’s turf. Gladio spends a good five minutes complimenting Ignis’s makeup and hair; Ignis has probably never blushed so hard in his life.

Slowly, Prompto drifts from the group. The prince and his two loyal retainers — they’re a world apart from him, as they probably always will be. He knows Noct will always be his best friend, but sometimes it’s easier to remind himself that there are parts of Noct’s life that Iggy and Gladio will always fit more easily into.

He meanders over to the table overburdened with snacks and homemade bites, picking up one of the pizza balls he helped Ignis painstakingly cook yesterday after school. He pops it into his mouth and grabs a glass of soda, leaning back against the table to survey the party while he chews.

After a while the song playing over the stereo changes to something a little more upbeat and he watches as the tone shifts, the other guests dancing with each other with carefree fervour. One of the seniors from their school, a member of the basketball team, grins at him and gestures him over; cheeks flushing Prompto toys with the invitation but shakes his head with a bashful smile.

Sobriety and self-conscious dancing don’t tend to mix, and Noct is under strict orders from Gladiolus to keep the party alcohol-free.

‘Prompto?’

He hadn’t noticed Noct edging his way around the party; Gladiolus and Ignis are still across the room, engaged in some sort of animated conversation, seemingly unaware that the prince is gone.

‘You having a good time?’ Noct asks.

Prompto shrugs.

‘Yeah, why’d you ask?’

Noct scans over the refreshments table, eventually grabbing himself a portion of cake covered in thick icing. He mulls over his response while he chews a mouthful of it, bobbing his head slightly in time to the music.

‘I’unno,’ he says eventually. ‘Just making sure.’

Prompto takes a sip of his drink and looks over the party again, glancing from face to face. He sees that same senior looking over from time to time, and he tries not to stare for too long in case he gives the guy the wrong idea. He’s cute — in a conventional sort of way — but Prompto isn’t so sure about it. When he thinks of wandering over to strike up conversation with a good looking guy he’s never spoken to, he decides he’d rather spend the night with his friends.

‘I’m having fun,’ he says brightly. ‘I keep reminding myself this isn’t one of Laila’s parties so I don’t need to watch my back for somebody trying to stick a knife into it.’

‘ _Ouch,_ Noct says, clutching his hand to his heart with a chuckle. ‘Harsh, dude.’

With an innocent expression, Prompto lifts his shoulders in a shrug.

‘Tell me you honestly think that’s not fair,’ he replies, ‘and I’ll personally call Laila up to apologise.’

Noct grimaces, and it’s almost worth the thought of it to see his expression alone.

‘Okay, okay,’ Noct says. ‘Harsh, but true.’

They make chitchat while they watch the party, and from time to time more revellers stream in through the front door, making themselves at home. Prompto can see Gladio’s hawk eyes scoping everyone out, as if on the hunt for any smuggled alcohol, and he can’t help but pity anybody who gets caught breaking Gladiolus’s rule.

‘I think it’s gonna be good,’ Noct says, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘This year, I mean. You finally get to be yourself, I’ve got my own place. School’s still shit, but maybe it won’t all suck.’

Prompto glances at his friend at the corner of his vision, then moves a little closer and slings an arm around his shoulders. They’ve both neglected to grow much of late, unlike so many of their classmates who shot up over the summer. Prompto’s glad for it — he likes the prince being around his height, if only to borrow from his stylish yet mostly untouched wardrobe.

‘Y’know what?’ he says, leaning close. ‘I think maybe you’re right.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it!
> 
> What started out as a semi-spiteful fic of self-indulgence to deal with stuff I had going on turned into a somewhat upbeat story of a kid figuring out his identity and realising he has support where he never expected it.
> 
> I wanted to thank everybody who has commented along the way, especially those who have reached out and said that this fic has helped them cope with things going on in their own lives. Your feedback means everything to me, but knowing that my writing could have a positive impact on people going through similar stuff? That makes it all worthwhile.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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